Podcasts about un commission

Jutta Wohlrab is an international midwife with over 40 years' experience in delivering over 3,000 babies and helping 10,000 mothers worldwide!  Jutta is a best-selling author of "Happy Birthing Days", speaker, NLP trainer and expert on women's health.  Jutta has spoken at many international events, conferences, and seminars and online summits, and is one of the top "go to" people for advice on:Pregnancy & BirthHormonesNLP (Neuro-linguistic programming)Hypnotherapy & HypnobirthingFemale Entrepreneurshiphttps://juttawohlrab.com/~~Dale Allen has for 25 years shared the healing energy of the sacred feminine through her work: In Our Right Minds, which has been widely acclaimed at universities, conferences, corporations, and theaters across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the Parliament of the World's Religions.  In Our Right Minds is an international bestselling book, and the film version has been awarded in 19 Independent Film Festivals worldwide. A veteran of corporate, commercial, and creative communications, Dale's extensive resume includes hundreds of voice-over, on-camera, theater and live presentation projects.   Support the show

Bongani Bingwa speaks with Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel and Palestine, Dr Navi Pillay about the deepening crisis, unpacking the legal and humanitarian implications of the situation, highlighting growing international concern over violations of international law and the worsening conditions on the ground. 702 Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa is broadcast on 702, a Johannesburg based talk radio station. Bongani makes sense of the news, interviews the key newsmakers of the day, and holds those in power to account on your behalf. The team bring you all you need to know to start your day Thank you for listening to a podcast from 702 Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa Find all the catch-up podcasts here https://www.primediaplus.com/702/702-breakfast-with-bongani-bingwa/audio-podcasts/702-breakfast-with-bongani-bingwa/ Listen live - 702 Breakfast is broadcast weekdays between 06:00 and 09:00 (SA Time) https://www.primediaplus.com/station/702 Subscribe to the 702 daily and weekly newsletters https://www.primediaplus.com/competitions/newsletter-subscription/  Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702   702 on TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702  702 on Instagram: www.instagram.com/talkradio702  702 on X: www.x.com/Radio702  702 on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@radio702  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the second year in a row, what had been an uneventful, consensus-driven United Nations meeting on drug policy saw unexpected drama and signs of real change. At the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna in March 2025, governments approved the formation of an independent expert commission to recommend changes to the architecture of global drug policy, which has changed little since the early 1960s. Colombia again played a catalytic role, as it did in 2024. But this time, the United States—under the new Trump administration—tried to block nearly everything, isolating itself diplomatically in the process. In this episode of the WOLA Podcast, Adam Isacson speaks with three experts who were in Vienna: Ann Fordham, Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a network of 195 organizations working to reform global drug policy. Isabel Pereira, Senior Coordinator for drug policy at DeJusticia, a Bogotá-based think tank and advocacy group. John Walsh, WOLA's Director for Drug Policy, who has tracked the UN's drug control system since the 1980s. The conversation traces the slow evolution of the UN drug control system—from decades of punitive consensus to today's shifting coalitions, unprecedented votes, and long-overdue reviews. Much of the episode centers on a breakthrough: a new resolution establishing an “independent external review” of the UN's own drug control institutions. For years, countries like Colombia have called for an honest assessment of the system's failings. Now, thanks to a resolution spearheaded by Colombia and passed over U.S. opposition, that review is happening. The details still matter: how independent the expert panel will truly be, who funds it, and whether the review can influence the hard architecture of the drug control treaties. “Vienna was very much a space where delegates would just pat each other on the back on how well we're doing the war on drugs,” Pereira said. “The spirit of Vienna created a sort of lockdown situation on debate, true debate,” added Walsh. “Civil society enlivened the Vienna atmosphere” in recent years, he noted, “with new debates, new arguments.” Now, this international space has become more dynamic. The guests also discuss coca leaf: its decades-old listing as a Schedule I narcotic, Bolivia's and Colombia's ongoing push for a scientific review, and the possibility of a pivotal vote in 2026. They stress how traditional knowledge—especially from Indigenous communities—must be recognized as legitimate scientific input during that review. Underlying it all is a major diplomatic shift. Colombia is using the UN system to demand drug policy grounded in health, human rights, and development—not militarized prohibition. But with Petro's term ending in 2026, it's unclear who will pick up the baton. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is signaling a return to zero-tolerance drug war policies—and burning bridges with potential allies in the process. “They behaved so terribly. I mean, they broke with all diplomatic niceties,” said Fordham. “The U.S. just went for it in their opening statement… It was frankly an embarrassing, but also pretty shocking statement.” Despite the uncertainty, all three guests agree: civil society is no longer on the sidelines. NGOs and experts are shaping debates, challenging rigid thinking in Vienna, and holding governments to account.

The Sudanese army shelled parts of Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman from early morning on Thursday, after declaring victory over their Rapid Support Forces rivals in a two-year battle for the capital. The army ousted the RSF from its last footholds in Khartoum on Wednesday but the paramilitary RSF holds some areas in Omdurman, directly across the Nile River, and has consolidated in West Sudan, splitting the nation into rival zones. Here is the latest report by the Reuters News Agency...

*Qatar calls for safeguards for all Israeli nuclear facilities Qatar reiterated its call for intensified international efforts Saturday to subject all of Israel's nuclear facilities to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Qatar's Ambassador Jasim Yacoub Al Hammadi highlighted “the need for the international community and its institutions to uphold their commitments under resolutions of the UN Security Council, which called on Israel to subject all of its nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards.” He also highlighted “the urgency for the international community and its institutions to take decisive action to compel Israel to implement international resolutions, recognise the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state. *Russia says France has repeatedly lied Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has accused France of lying and violating international agreements, including the implementation of the Minsk agreements for a settlement in Ukraine and violated security guarantees given to Viktor Yanukovych, a former Ukrainian president. He stressed: "France, like other countries, didn't fulfill its guarantees. It was a real lie," adding that when French President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of posing a threat to Europe, he did not mention France's mistakes. The Minsk Agreements were meant to resolve the Crimea crisis in 2014, as well as Eastern Ukraine. *Arab League denounces attack on security forces in Syria The Arab League condemned acts of violence and attacks on government security forces to fuel internal tensions and threaten civil peace in Syria. It expressed "condemnation of violence, attacks on government security forces, and reckless killings, threaten civil peace, and exacerbate the challenges Syria is facing at this critical stage."​​​​​​​ The Arab League emphasised that "such circumstances require a focus on policies and measures that strengthen and safeguard stability and civil peace to thwart any plans aimed at destabilising Syria and undermining its chances for recovery." *North Korea unveils nuclear-powered submarine for the first time North Korea has unveiled for the first time a nuclear-powered submarine under construction, a weapons system that can pose a major security threat to South Korea and the US. The naval vessel appears to be a 6,000-ton-class or 7,000-ton-class one which can carry about 10 missiles, South Korean submarine expert said, adding the use of the term “the strategic guided missiles” meant it would carry nuclear-capable weapons. *Un warns South Sudan's peace process at risk amid growing violence A recent surge in violence and escalating political tensions in South Sudan are putting a fragile peace process in jeopardy, a UN human rights commission warned. "We are witnessing an alarming regression that could erase years of hard-won progress," Yasmin Sooka, chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, said. She urged leaders to "urgently refocus on the peace process, uphold the human rights of South Sudanese citizens, and ensure a smooth transition to democracy."

Mary Kaldor, a retired professor at LSE, has been one of the leading peace researchers and activists in the world since founding the Helsinki Citizens Assembly at the end of the Cold War. She is on th UN Commission on Disarmament now and is writing a book about the world order. She gives Metta a peek at this big work and together they speculate about the kind of institutional lgoal changes that are coming. For the video, audio podcast, and comments: https://tosavetheworld.ca/episode-663-mary-kaldors-new-world-order.

Speaker: Arman Sarvarian, University of SurreyDate: Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Friday 31 January 2025Dr Arman Sarvarian will speak about his forthcoming monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice to be published by Oxford University Press in April. The product of seven years' labour of approximately 170,000 words, the work includes a foreword by Professor August Reinisch of the University of Vienna and International Law Commission. The following is the summary of Oxford University Press:'The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice provides a comprehensive, practical, and empirical overview of the topic, establishing State succession as a distinct field with a cohesive set of rules.From the secession of the United States of America in 1784 to that of South Sudan in 2011, the book digests and analyses State practice spanning more than two centuries. It is based on research into a wide and diverse range of case studies, including archival and previously unpublished data. Reconstructing the intellectual foundation of the field, the book offers a vision for its progressive development - one that is rooted in an interpretation of State practice that transcends the politics of the codification projects in the decolonization and desovietization eras.The book examines international law on State succession with respect to territorial rights and obligations, State property (including archives) and debt, treaties, international claims and responsibility, as well as nationality and private property (including concessions and investments). Its central focus is identifying the general rules of international law in order to guide States in the negotiation of succession agreements, the interpretation of ambiguous or incomplete provisions, and the regulation of succession in default of specific agreement.A highly relevant work, The Law of State Succession offers governments, judges, legal practitioners, and scholars an authoritative account of the current law. It enables negotiators to identify different legal paths within succession and assists adjudicators in interpreting provisions of succession agreements and regulating questions omitted from such agreements.' The book is available for pre-order at the OUP website.Dr Arman Sarvarian a public international lawyer in academia and private practice. A Reader in Public International Law at the University of Surrey, he regularly acts as legal adviser and counsel to States, companies and individuals. He is counsel to the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in the pending Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change advisory proceedings of the International Court of Justice and counsel in two pending investor-State arbitrations. Since 2019, he has served as legal adviser to the Republic of Armenia at the Legal Committee of the UN General Assembly for the annual reports of the International Law Commission and International Court of Justice as well as multilateral negotiations on reform of investor-State arbitration in Working Group III of the UN Commission on International Trade Law. He served as judge ad hoc in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2020.A generalist of broad interests and expertise, his first monograph Professional Ethics at the International Bar (Oxford University Press, International Courts and Tribunals Series, 19 September 2013) was the first comprehensive work on the subject and has been widely cited, including in proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, investment arbitrations and the International Court of Justice. His second monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice will be published by Oxford University Press in April 2025. He is a Humboldt Research Fellow in Climate Change Law at the University of Kiel from 2024 to 2026. Chair: Dr Jamie Trinidad, Centre Fellow

Speaker: Arman Sarvarian, University of SurreyDate: Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Friday 31 January 2025Dr Arman Sarvarian will speak about his forthcoming monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice to be published by Oxford University Press in April. The product of seven years' labour of approximately 170,000 words, the work includes a foreword by Professor August Reinisch of the University of Vienna and International Law Commission. The following is the summary of Oxford University Press:'The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice provides a comprehensive, practical, and empirical overview of the topic, establishing State succession as a distinct field with a cohesive set of rules.From the secession of the United States of America in 1784 to that of South Sudan in 2011, the book digests and analyses State practice spanning more than two centuries. It is based on research into a wide and diverse range of case studies, including archival and previously unpublished data. Reconstructing the intellectual foundation of the field, the book offers a vision for its progressive development - one that is rooted in an interpretation of State practice that transcends the politics of the codification projects in the decolonization and desovietization eras.The book examines international law on State succession with respect to territorial rights and obligations, State property (including archives) and debt, treaties, international claims and responsibility, as well as nationality and private property (including concessions and investments). Its central focus is identifying the general rules of international law in order to guide States in the negotiation of succession agreements, the interpretation of ambiguous or incomplete provisions, and the regulation of succession in default of specific agreement.A highly relevant work, The Law of State Succession offers governments, judges, legal practitioners, and scholars an authoritative account of the current law. It enables negotiators to identify different legal paths within succession and assists adjudicators in interpreting provisions of succession agreements and regulating questions omitted from such agreements.' The book is available for pre-order at the OUP website.Dr Arman Sarvarian a public international lawyer in academia and private practice. A Reader in Public International Law at the University of Surrey, he regularly acts as legal adviser and counsel to States, companies and individuals. He is counsel to the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in the pending Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change advisory proceedings of the International Court of Justice and counsel in two pending investor-State arbitrations. Since 2019, he has served as legal adviser to the Republic of Armenia at the Legal Committee of the UN General Assembly for the annual reports of the International Law Commission and International Court of Justice as well as multilateral negotiations on reform of investor-State arbitration in Working Group III of the UN Commission on International Trade Law. He served as judge ad hoc in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2020.A generalist of broad interests and expertise, his first monograph Professional Ethics at the International Bar (Oxford University Press, International Courts and Tribunals Series, 19 September 2013) was the first comprehensive work on the subject and has been widely cited, including in proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, investment arbitrations and the International Court of Justice. His second monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice will be published by Oxford University Press in April 2025. He is a Humboldt Research Fellow in Climate Change Law at the University of Kiel from 2024 to 2026. Chair: Dr Jamie Trinidad, Centre Fellow

Speaker: Arman Sarvarian, University of SurreyDate: Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Friday 31 January 2025Dr Arman Sarvarian will speak about his forthcoming monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice to be published by Oxford University Press in April. The product of seven years' labour of approximately 170,000 words, the work includes a foreword by Professor August Reinisch of the University of Vienna and International Law Commission. The following is the summary of Oxford University Press:'The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice provides a comprehensive, practical, and empirical overview of the topic, establishing State succession as a distinct field with a cohesive set of rules.From the secession of the United States of America in 1784 to that of South Sudan in 2011, the book digests and analyses State practice spanning more than two centuries. It is based on research into a wide and diverse range of case studies, including archival and previously unpublished data. Reconstructing the intellectual foundation of the field, the book offers a vision for its progressive development - one that is rooted in an interpretation of State practice that transcends the politics of the codification projects in the decolonization and desovietization eras.The book examines international law on State succession with respect to territorial rights and obligations, State property (including archives) and debt, treaties, international claims and responsibility, as well as nationality and private property (including concessions and investments). Its central focus is identifying the general rules of international law in order to guide States in the negotiation of succession agreements, the interpretation of ambiguous or incomplete provisions, and the regulation of succession in default of specific agreement.A highly relevant work, The Law of State Succession offers governments, judges, legal practitioners, and scholars an authoritative account of the current law. It enables negotiators to identify different legal paths within succession and assists adjudicators in interpreting provisions of succession agreements and regulating questions omitted from such agreements.' The book is available for pre-order at the OUP website.Dr Arman Sarvarian a public international lawyer in academia and private practice. A Reader in Public International Law at the University of Surrey, he regularly acts as legal adviser and counsel to States, companies and individuals. He is counsel to the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in the pending Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change advisory proceedings of the International Court of Justice and counsel in two pending investor-State arbitrations. Since 2019, he has served as legal adviser to the Republic of Armenia at the Legal Committee of the UN General Assembly for the annual reports of the International Law Commission and International Court of Justice as well as multilateral negotiations on reform of investor-State arbitration in Working Group III of the UN Commission on International Trade Law. He served as judge ad hoc in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2020.A generalist of broad interests and expertise, his first monograph Professional Ethics at the International Bar (Oxford University Press, International Courts and Tribunals Series, 19 September 2013) was the first comprehensive work on the subject and has been widely cited, including in proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, investment arbitrations and the International Court of Justice. His second monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice will be published by Oxford University Press in April 2025. He is a Humboldt Research Fellow in Climate Change Law at the University of Kiel from 2024 to 2026. Chair: Dr Jamie Trinidad, Centre Fellow

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India (Stanford University Press, 2024). Against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, debates around the social impact of hate crime legislation have come to the political fore. In 2019, the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urgently asked how legal systems can counter bias and discrimination. In India, a nation with vast socio-cultural diversity, and a complex colonial past, questions about the relationship between law and histories of oppression have become particularly pressing. Recently, India has seen a rise in violence against Dalits (ex-untouchables) and other minorities. Consequently, an emerging "Dalit Lives Matter" movement has campaigned for the effective implementation of India's only hate crime law: the 1989 Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA). Drawing on long-term fieldwork with Dalit survivors of caste atrocities, human rights NGOs, police, and judiciary, Sandhya Fuchs unveils how Dalit communities in the state of Rajasthan interpret and mobilize the PoA. Fuchs shows that the PoA has emerged as a project of legal meliorism: the idea that persistent and creative legal labor can gradually improve the oppressive conditions that characterize Dalit lives. Moving beyond statistics and judicial arguments, Fuchs uses the intimate lens of personal narratives to lay bare how legal processes converge and conflict with political and gendered concerns about justice for caste atrocities, creating new controversies, inequalities, and hopes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Text me to ask a question, leave a comment or just say hello! Hey doc! In today's episode, Dr. Dana Coriel, internist turned digital entrepreneur, shares her 20-year journey through medicine and motherhood. From having her first baby as a resident to building SoMeDocs (Doctors on Social Media), she offers invaluable insights about:Navigating residency with a newbornThe reality of getting help in different career stagesManaging perfectionist tendencies and mom guiltWhen children need you most Rediscovering yourself beyond medicineBuilding a digital empire while raising three boysKey takeaways:Your kids are more resilient than you thinkTeenage years demand more of your presence than early childhoodPersonal rediscovery can lead to unexpected career pathsPerfectionism in early motherhood often brings unnecessary stressDana Corriel, MD, is the founder/CEO of SoMeDocs (doctorsonsocialmedia.com), a healthcare innovation hub that promotes the autonomy of individuals in healthcare. Corriel serves as an advisor to many health brands and has helped shape many of today's digital projects, especially those tackled by physicians. She has spoken at events such as Harvard's Writing, Publishing, & Social Media for Healthcare Professionals (3 years in a row), PR Week, Women in Medicine, Women Physician Wellness, InnovatorMD, Leverage & Growth Summit, UN Commission for the Status of Women/AMWA, and more. Dr. Corriel has earned recognitions including Top Ten Internists to Follow on Twitter by Medical Economics & Top 20 Social Media Physician Influencers by Medscape. Her “special sauce” skills include digital design, unique growth ideas, and community building strategies. She adds particular value to startups in the health & healthcare space, having practiced medicine as a board-certified internist & being an active player in the space & a pioneer in the healthcare digital revolution.For more information about Dr. Corriel, you can visit her website and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and her personal website.  Remember to subscribe to "Stethoscopes and Strollers" on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode of encouragement and empowerment. Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube Connect with me. Website | Instagram | Facebook Join my Email list to get tips on navigating motherhood in the medical field. If you feel you need direct support or someone to talk through the unique challenges of being a physician mom, schedule a free coaching session. Free Coaching Session with Dr. Toya

Dale talks with lovely Emmi Mutale, Founder of Feminine Revered about her journey to the Sacred Feminine and deep crisis can bring us back into alignment.  Emmi shares womb wisdom and the healing energy of the Mother, as well as an invitation to join her upcoming 7-week offering: The Way of the Womb!More here:https://femininerevered.com/online-healing-program-the-way-of-the-womb/Emmi is an intuitive healer, wisdom keeper and a shamanic womb Priestess and teacher, dedicated to re-awakening ancient feminine wisdom. She is an initiate to a South African shamanic lineage and trained in womb shamanism (Fountain of Life and Sanctuary of Sophia), Zen Shiatsu and Usui and Lightarian Reiki. Emmi is also an advanced level EFT (EFTI), Matrix Reimprinting (MRA) and Heal Your Birth Protocols practitioner. In her sacred healing work, Emmi weaves these modalities together to create a magical experience for deep healing and transformation for women of all ages around the world, holding a safe, protected and non-judgmental space for the emergence of authentic connection, profound knowing and inner power. She works with women one on one and in groups, both face to face, online and in retreat settings with the intention of raising the frequency of our planet and fostering healing one womb at a time.Dale Allen has for 25 years shared the healing energy of the sacred feminine through her work: In Our Right Minds. The piece was first a musical theater production, then a one-women multi-media dynamic presentation, an award-winning film, and now a book. In Our Right Minds has been widely acclaimed in all of its forms.  Dale has presented to scores of audiences: touring universities, conferences, corporations, theaters, and expos across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, and twice to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. (Her encore was requested by the Vice President of the UN Commission, Ambassador Gonzales.)  The film screened at the 2023 Parliament of the World's Religions Film Festival in Chicago. It has been awarded in 19 Independent Film Festivals worldwide. The 2024 book is an International Best Seller on Amazon. ~~~Dale Allen • In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity's Natural BalanceWebsite:https://www.inourrightminds.netBestselling Book:•Color Version:https://a.co/d/e8MZm8C• Black & White Version:https://a.co/d/imfeMKqAward-Winning Film:https://www.inourrightminds.net/watch-the-film.html The Dale Allen Podcasthttps://daleallenpodcast.buzzsprout.com Support the show

Felice Gaer, esteemed Director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally respected human rights advocate who dedicated more than four decades to championing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enforcing international commitments to prevent severe human rights violations globally. On November 9, Felice passed away after a prolonged battle with metastatic breast cancer. In honor of her legacy, we revisit her insightful conversation on People of the Pod, recorded last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day. As we remember and celebrate Felice's profound contributions, we share this interview once more. May her memory continue to be a blessing. __ Music credits: Drops of Melting Snow (after Holst, Abroad as I was walking) by Axletree is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. Learn more about Felice Gaer: Felice Gaer, Legendary Human Rights Champion Who Inspired Generations of Global Advocates, Dies at 78 Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  What the Election Results Mean for Israel and the Jewish People The Jewish Vote in Pennsylvania: What You Need to Know Sinwar Eliminated: What Does This Mean for the 101 Hostages Still Held by Hamas? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Felice Gaer: Manya Brachear Pashman:   This past weekend, AJC lost a phenomenal colleague. Felice Gaer, the director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally renowned human rights expert who, for more than four decades, brought life and practical significance to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international commitments, to prevent grave human rights abuses around the world.  She died on November 9, following a lengthy battle with metastatic breast cancer. I had the honor of interviewing Felice last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day.  We bring you that interview now, as we remember Felice. May her memory be for a blessing.  _ Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.  Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.  Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?  Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses? Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there? Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that. Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside? Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before. Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion. Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?  Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented. Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about? Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well? Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating anti semitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone. Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it? Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown. Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen? Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror. Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress? Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them. Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report? Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

I am over the MOON excited to share this discussion with you! When I first encountered Dale Allen's (@daleallen_inourrightminds) work on the SACRED FEMININE, it was like a lightning bolt to my soul. As someone who's walked the path of spiritual deconstruction, I knew I had to bring Dale's wisdom to our community. She discusses the importance of balancing our RIGHT and LEFT brain hemispheres and reconnecting with our divine feminine nature.   In this episode: Discussing our lost goddess history and the beginnings of patriarchy  Exploring the journey of AWAKENING to the sacred feminine Understanding the impact of MALE MONOTHEISM on cultural perspectives The healing power of FEMININE ARCHETYPES & imagery   Dale Allen is an acclaimed speaker, performer, and author. For 25 years, she has shared the healing energy of the sacred feminine through her acclaimed work "In Our Right Minds." This project has evolved from a musical theater production to a one-woman show, an award-winning film, and now a best-selling book. Dale has presented to diverse audiences across the globe, including at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Her book, "In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity's Natural Balance," offers profound insights into reclaiming our wholeness through embracing the sacred feminine.   Check the trailer to In Our Right Minds here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSmsrto390s WATCH our episode on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SoulRoseShow … Follow Dale on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daleallen_inourrightminds/ Dale Allen's book "In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity's Natural Balance": https://a.co/d/8YPCZUM Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cherie.burton/ Join my new MINDBODY Soul Membership: https://www.cherieburton.com/mindbody-membership Get my Free WHOLE BODY Healing Mini-Course:  https://www.cherieburton.com/freeminicourse Ask to join our private Facebook group, SOUL ROSE COMMUNITY, for exclusive content and free monthly, live sessions & classes!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/353442392180748/

Clement Manyathela speaks to Judge Navi Pillay, the Chair of UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel and Palestine about the UN's top court saying Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is against international law.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

World Day for International Justice is also known as Day of International Criminal Justice or International Justice. This is a day marked around the world on 17 July as a way to recognise the system of international criminal justice.  In our podcast to mark this day we are looking at a specific aspect of criminal and social justice, the trafficking women and girls. Our guest is Linda Witong, Soroptimist International Advocacy Advisor 2024-2025. Linda has served as the President of the Soroptimists of Marin County and Novato and has been a Soroptimist delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women from 2013-2024. Linda is now retired but she was Deputy District Attorney in the Marin County District Attorney's Office for over 32 years. She is currently a member of the Marin County Human Trafficking Coalition and is receiving training in homicide investigation, human trafficking, child abduction and elder abuse. 

Nearly 75 years after the United Nations called for the abolition of  coca leaf chewing, the world will have an opportunity to correct this grave historic error. The World Health Organization (WHO), at  the Plurinational State of Bolivia's request,  and supported by Colombia, will conduct a ‘critical review' of the coca leaf over the next year. Based on its findings, the WHO may recommend changes in coca's classification under the UN drug control treaties. The WHO recommendations would be submitted for approval by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), with voting likely in 2026.  The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) will be monitoring the coca review process closely and examining key aspects of the debate. As part of this we are producing a series called “Coca Chronicles”. The first issue of the Coca Chronicles discussed the current classification of the coca leaf in Schedule I of the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (or its effective ban) and Bolivia's initiation of the WHO critical review process. The second issue highlighted three developments during the March 2024 CND session: (1) support for the coca review from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; (2) Bolivia's call to protect the coca leaf as a genetic resource; and (3) an update on the WHO's preparations for the review.  In this third issue, Anthropologist Wade Davis gives us a deep dive into the history and significance of the coca leaf in the Andean Amazon region.  Wade Davis is a Canadian cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and writer. He is professor of anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. He is a multiple award-winning author of more than 25 books, and has done extensive research into coca leaf, among many other ethnobotanic explorations.  

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. It is day 251 of the war with Hamas. Diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman and military reporter Emanuel Fabian join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode. Yesterday, Hezbollah launched some 215 rockets and several more missiles and drones at northern Israel. The barrages marked the largest attack carried out by Hezbollah during ongoing fighting on the Lebanon border amid the war in the Gaza Strip. This came after the Israel Air Force struck southern Lebanon and killed Hezbollah top commander Taleb Abdullah on Tuesday night. Fabian fills us in. After the past several days of conflict along the northern border -- due to an escalation from both side -- Berman examines what a war between Israel and Hezbollah would not look like. The IDF said Wednesday it would recognize a reservist with post-traumatic stress disorder who took his own life as a fallen soldier, and he will receive a military burial as his family had requested. Fabian tells us more about the case of combat engineer Sgt. Maj. (res.) Eliran Mizrahi. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said today while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Group of Seven (G7) meeting of leaders in southern Italy that Israel is standing behind a ceasefire proposal for the eight-month-old war in the Gaza Strip, and the goal is to bridge gaps with Hamas and get to a deal soon. Berman examines Hamas's statements and the ability to carry on negotiations. A UN Commission of Inquiry alleged on Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, saying Israel's actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses, and that they included acts of “extermination.” What happens next? For more updates, please check out The Times of Israel's ongoing live blog. Discussed articles include: 215 rockets fired at north after IDF killing of ‘most senior' Hezbollah officer yet IDF to recognize reservist with PTSD who took own life as a fallen soldier Blinken pans Hamas response to Israeli offer, says some of its changes ‘not workable' UN reports accuse Israel of ‘extermination,' crimes against humanity; Hamas of war crimes THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Civilians and soldiers killed in Hamas's onslaught on Israel THOSE WE ARE MISSING: The hostages and victims whose fate is still unknown Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: The coffin of Taleb Abdallah, known as Abu Taleb, a senior field commander of Hezbollah who was killed in what security forces say was an Israel strike, is carried during his funeral in Beirut's southern suburbs on June 12, 2024. (Anwar Amro / AFP)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Elisa Parker.  Elisa connects people through the power of story, partnership and solutions to amplify women's leadership and close the gender gap. She has served as the founder of cutting-edge organizations and programs, a nationally acclaimed radio host, producer, coalition builder, strategist and visionary for equity and social justice. She currently oversees Equal Voice | Equal Future, a new gender justice media hub championed by the Fund for Women's Equality and its sister organization, the ERA Coalition. Moving from silos to solidarity through partnership development, programming and hosting the Coalition's new podcast, Equality Talks, she is intent on spreading the word of the Equal Rights Amendment to ensure the 28th Amendment is published in our Constitution. Elisa is the founder, director and host of the award-winning media program and organization, See Jane Do, co-founder of 50 Women Can Change the World in Media & Entertainment, Indivisible Women and 100 Women Change Hollywood. Other notable works include creating the Passion into ActionTM Women's Conference, TEDxGrassValley, Raising Jane and the See Jane Do Media Lounge. She's spoken at events such as, The United State of Women Summit, UN Commission on the Status of Women, TEDx, The Women's March, March for Civility, The Power Women Summit and Netroots Nation. She reaches thousands through partnership with like-minded organizations and develops organizational-wide initiatives, communications strategies for events and digital media campaigns that support gender equality, diversity and inclusion. For over 17 years she has served as an award-winning talk radio host and DJ for KVMR and hosted and managed the Wild & Scenic Film Festival Media Lounge, the largest festival of its kind. Her interviews include luminaries such as Lily Tomlin, Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, Melissa Etheridge, Shawn Colvin, Mick Fleetwood, Donna Karan, Geena Davis, Patrick Stewart, Debra Winger, Yvon Chouinard, Jennifer Newsom, Michael Franti, Kathy Griffin, Krishna Das, Joan Blades, Indigo Girls, Sandra Bernhard, Monique Coleman, Simrit Kaur, Terry Tempest Williams, Helen Reddy and other positive deviants across the country who have taken a left turn and are creating new models, programs and systems to create positive social impact. Elisa is a recipient of the Jody Fenimore Award for Public Affairs and Osborn-Woods Community Service Award. She served on the KVMR Board of Directors and the Advisory Committee to SheAngels. Elisa is an alumna of the Women's Media Center Progressive Women's Voices program, Take the Lead Women and the Vote, Run, Lead Go Run program. She holds a BA in Communications from San Francisco State and a MA in Organization Development & Leadership from the University of San Francisco.   seejanedo.com 50womencan-media.com EqualVoice.org eracoalition.org www.sheangelinvestors.com

Dana Corriel, MD, is the founder/CEO of SoMeDocs (doctorsonsocialmedia.com), a healthcare innovation hub that promotes the autonomy of individuals in healthcare. Corriel serves as an advisor to many health brands and has helped shape many of today's digital projects, especially those tackled by physicians. She has taught at conferences such as Harvard's Writing, Publishing, & Social Media for Healthcare Professionals, Women in Medicine, Women Physician Wellness,  InnovatorMD, Leverage & Growth Summit, UN Commission for the Status of Women/AMWA, and more. Dr. Corriel has earned recognitions including Top Ten Internists to Follow on Twitter by Medical Economics & Top 20 Social Media Physician Influencers by Medscape. She has appeared in major outlets such as LA Times, Gastro & Endo News, MDMagazine, The Boston Globe, Huff Post, Medscape, and EP News, and can be heard on multiple podcasts. Corriel has created various video series, including two seasons with Samuel Shem, author of The House of God, and has spearheaded a book compilation of women physician essays, published in 2023 by Kent State Press. Her “special sauce” skills include digital design, unique growth ideas, and community building strategies. She adds particular value to startups in the health & healthcare space, having practiced medicine as a board-certified internist & being an active player in the space & a pioneer in the healthcare digital revolution. Some of the topics we discussed:Dr. Corriel's journeyWhat exactly an online brand is and why physicians need itMarketing yourself as a professionalWhere to start if you want to market yourselfHow to deal with negativity online and stand up for yourself Understanding the concept of “haters” and coming to terms with itThe biggest lessons Dr. Corriel has learned throughout her journey as an entrepreneur and what she would recommend to others who want to do something similarHow a personal brand helps someone who is employed by an organization What SoMeDocs is and how doctors and students can benefit from itSoMeDocs' virtual conferences And more!Learn more about me or schedule a FREE coaching call:https://www.joyfulsuccessliving.com/Join the Voices of Women Physicians Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/190596326343825/Connect with Dr. Corriel:doctorsonsocialmedia.com drcorriel.com doctorsonsocialmedia.com instagram.com/somedocs instagram.com/drcorriel twitter.com/somedocs 

On March 14-22, 2024, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) held its 67th annual session in Vienna, Austria. The session saw a landmark vote that may have important repercussions for drug policy, in Latin America and elsewhere.   The commission approved a U.S.-led resolution encouraging countries to implement “harm reduction” measures to respond to drug overdoses and to protect public health.   The vote marks a major breakthrough in civil society's decades-long advocacy to center harm reduction, especially since the U.S. government has a history of blocking all such resolutions, and since the Commission has a longstanding tradition of enactment by a “Vienna Consensus” without votes.   This episode features three guests who helped lead civil society's robust participation at the CND:   Ann Fordham, executive director of International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) Lisa Sanchez, executive director of México Unido Contra la Delincuencia (MUCD) John Walsh, director for drug policy and the Andes at WOLA   The three experts underscore that while the vote on this resolution was a major win in the civil society-led harm reduction fight, it is just one milestone along a longer journey. The fight must continue to ensure this sets the foundation for an international drug policy that truly prioritizes protecting people, views drug addiction as a public health and not a national security issue, and moves away from the normative framework of achieving a “drug free society” through punitive measures and prohibition.   “The prohibition regime has tried to make itself inevitable and ‘forever,' and that's not the case… There's no reason to think that it needs to last forever. In fact, as we said, it was a misfit from the very beginning,” says John Walsh. “Drug use has always existed, it always will. To suggest that we're going to create a ‘drug-free world' is not only futile, but it's downright dangerous because of its consequences… I think this is an opening to think more broadly about not just the UN drug policy space, but what governments need to do for the health, safety, and well-being of their populations.”

The Commission on the Status of Women concludes this week at the United Nations. CSW, as it is known, is one of the major annual events at UN headquarters, second only to the opening of the UN General Assembly in September. But unlike UNGA, it rarely gets much media attention, at least not the kind of attention commensurate for a diplomatic gathering of its size. Joining me to explain the key debates and discussion from the 68th Commission on the Status of Women is Michelle Milford Morse, Vice President for Girls and Women Strategy at the United Nations Foundation.  We kick off with a long conversation about the unique diplomatic dynamic surrounding international debates and discussions on gender equality--including why after years of progress, advocates for gender equality are now playing defense. We then discuss some of items that were on the agenda at CSW this year.   

Kevin delivers a thunderous 3 minutes of remarks on behalf of SAM & FDPS to the UN's 67th CND, before all the member states to tremendous applause. Listen as he reminds member states of their treaty obligations to reject drug legalization & outlines the failures of extreme policies in Oregon, Canada, and more.Follow the work of SAM and FDPS below:https://learnaboutsam.org/https://gooddrugpolicy.org/https://thedrugreport.org/On X: https://twitter.com/learnaboutsamhttps://twitter.com/GoodDrugPolicyhttps://twitter.com/KevinSabethttps://twitter.com/LukeNiforatosOn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/learnaboutsam

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for greater international cooperation to fight synthetic drugs, like Fentanyl, while Colombia has announced its support for a public health-focused approach to the global drug trade. Blinken and Colombian President Gustavo Petro were speaking at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna. The New Zealand Drug Foundation's Sarah Helm spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.

Dale Allen has for 25 years shared the healing energy of the sacred feminine through her work: In Our Right Minds: Guiding Women to Their Strength as Leaders, Leading Men to Strength Without Armor. The piece was first a musical theater production, then a one-women multi-media dynamic presentation, then an award-winning film, now a forthcoming book and a next-level film production. In Our Right Minds has been widely acclaimed in all its forms. As successful live presentation, Dale presented to scores of audiences, touring universities, conferences, corporations, theaters, and expos across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, and twice to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. (Her encore was requested by the Vice President of the UN Commission, Ambassador Gonzales.) The film screened at the 2023 Parliament of the World's Religions Film Festival in Chicago. It has been named a Finalist, Official Selection and Semi-Finalist in 19 Independent Film Festivals worldwide. In Our Right Minds is a sweeping journey covered efficiently and clearly, in short order - judiciously illuminating the history and relevance of the Goddess archetype, its impact on societies where this archetype is active, as well as its connection to our right-brain way of both attending to - and shaping - the world. In Our Right Minds garners praise for being “well-researched, organized, clear, level, balanced, without blame, and inclusive of all the human family.” Carl Jung wrote in The Structure and Dynamic of the Psyche: “Archetypes, are the living system of reactions and aptitudes that determine the individual's life in invisible ways. In Our Right Minds looks at the invisible yet powerful ways the Goddess archetype affects persons and cultures. When a society embraces the concept of a female creator, that society behaves differently than a society that embraces a male deity. As Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday documented: there is a clear connection between Goddess veneration and: the honoring of nature, women's role as officiators of sacred sacraments, connection to the land, and women's power and social status. In Our Right Minds illuminates historical and current consequences of the suppression of the Goddess archetype, as well as the ways in which the Goddess archetype is being energized globally today. In Our Right Minds coherently and elegantly synthesizes psychology, history, myth, anthropology, sociology, art and poetry into an eye-opening and life-changing alternation of our perspective. Dale Allen's YouTube Channel is now featuring Women of the World's Religions – the Women's Task Force interview series from the Parliament of the World's Religions. These can also be heard on “The Dale Allen Podcast” on all podcast platforms. Dale is also a contributing writer in several esteemed books, including international best-seller, Womb to Thrive. She's a veteran of corporate, commercial and creative communications. Her extensive resume includes hundreds of voice-over, on-camera, theater and live presentation projects. SUPPORT: You can support Dale's work and the In Our Right Minds film at buymeacoffee.com/daleallen FOLLOW: You can find Dale at her websites Dale Allen Productions and Women of the World's Religions, the In Our Right Minds website, on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok LISTEN:  You can listen to the Dale Allen Podcast - Women of the World's Religions podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and most other popular pod streaming platforms. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thegirlfriendgod/message

Dale Allen is with me today discussing her 25 year journey, sharing the healing energy of the Sacred Feminine through her work, the one woman show In Our Right Minds: Guiding Women to Their Strength as Leaders, Leading Men to Strength Without Armor, which has been widely acclaimed at universities, conferences, corporations, theaters and expos across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the Parliament of the World's Religions.  The film version has been awarded in 19 independent film festivals worldwide.

In this made-for-movie episode, Nadean Stone reads excerpts from her memoir No Stone Unturned: A Remarkable Journey to Identity. Nadean was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1981, at a time when very little information and resources were available. However, that is not where Nadean's story begins. Six days after her birth, her mother gave her up for adoption, which led to a 44-year search for her birth mother utilizing DNA technology and innovative detective skills. Her search challenged the laws in Ontario regarding non-adoptees access to their birth records. In July 2018, Nadean filed a petition with the UN Commission on the Rights of the Child illuminating numerous Articles of the UN Convention that the Province of Ontario has violated in its treatment of illegally adopted children. She is currently exploring the transformation of her memoir into a television series.✨Highlights from the show:[00:02:25] Ovarian cancer diagnosis.[00:06:07] Difficult decision for more children.[00:11:49] Finding birth mother through DNA.[00:16:35] Creating a TV series.[00:20:17] Do not be defined by your challenges.

Dale Allen is with me today discussing her 25 year journey, sharing the healing energy of the Sacred Feminine through her work, the one woman show In Our Right Minds: Guiding Women to Their Strength as Leaders, Leading Men to Strength Without Armor, which has been widely acclaimed at universities, conferences, corporations, theaters and expos across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the Parliament of the World's Religions.  The film version has been awarded in 19 independent film festivals worldwide.

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. Today is day 77 of the war. Health reporter Renee Ghert-Zand and political reporter Sam Sokol join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's podcast. As of this morning, 139 soldiers have fallen in the IDF's ground offensive in Gaza. But thousands more are wounded. Ghert-Zand reports how Israel is not prepared to handle these numbers in the long or short term. Sokol accompanied a mission of US evangelical leaders to the south this week that was put together by Joel C. Rosenberg, a Jerusalem-based Israeli Christian interfaith activist, and Likud MK Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN. We hear impressions from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Ken Blackwell, a former US ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights who worked for Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in the 1970s. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 21 hostages, with the bodies of only eight of them having been recovered by Israel. The task of determining the death of hostages held in Gaza has fallen to an independent committee of three leading Israeli medical professionals. Ghert-Zand brings highlights from her interview with Shaare Zedek Medical Center's director general Prof. Ofer Merin, one of the members of the committee. For the latest updates, please look at The Times of Israel's ongoing live blog. Discussed articles include: Live blog December 22, 2023 War caught Israeli rehab hospitals unprepared to handle number of wounded Devastation of Gaza border towns a ‘gut punch,' says Huckabee during evangelical tour How an unprecedented medical committee determines when a hostage held in Gaza is dead Soldier from battalion that mistakenly shot hostages meets mom of one of those killed THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Civilians and soldiers killed in Hamas's onslaught on Israel THOSE WE ARE MISSING: The hostages and victims whose fate is still unknown Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: People walk by photographs of civilians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, posted in Tel Aviv, December 21, 2023. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Professor Avinash Persaud is special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and emeritus professor at Gresham College in the UK. He, along with PM Mottley, helped design the Bridgetown Initiative in 2022 which laid out a path for reforming and ramping up the mobiliisation of climate finance to the developing world. The initiative has gathered vast international support and he's heading to COP28 in Dubai to work on advancing the climate development agenda.His career spreads across finance, academia and public policy, including positions as a former senior executive of J.P. Morgan, UBS, State Street, chairman of the CARICOM Commission on the Economy, chairman of the regulatory sub-committee of the UN Commission on Financial Reform and chairman of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform, Visiting Scholar at the IMF and a former Governor of the London School of Economics.  Related EpisodesEpisode 2 with Rachel Kyte: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-2-rachel-kyte/ LinksRead an initial press release of the Bridgetown Initiative: https://pmo.gov.bb/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-2022-Bridgetown-Initiative.pdfRead a summary of the Bridgetown Initiative's key demands: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/what-is-bridgetown-initiative-asking-paris-financial-summit-2023-06-20/Review PM Mottley's speech to COP27, outlining the need for the Bridgetown Initiatve: https://latinarepublic.com/2022/11/08/mia-mottley-prime-minister-of-barbados-speaks-at-the-opening-of-cop27/Explore the COP28 website: https://www.cop28.comRead this report on the difficult path ahead to a new loss-and-damage fund agreement at COP28: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/impasse-broken-climate-fund-before-cop28-tough-road-ahead-2023-11-06 

“You've been given gifts, use them” is the advice that Co-Chair of VERITY NOW and policy powerhouse Beth Brooke would give to her 24-year-old self. Beth has dedicated her career to creating an inclusive space for women and the LGBTQ+ community. Prior to her work at VERITY NOW, an organization aimed at educating and advocating for gender equity in vehicle safety standards, Beth served as the Global Vice Chair of Ernst & Young, held multiple senior roles at the Department of the Treasury, and has chaired the Board of Vital Voices. This two-time delegate for the U.S. to the UN Commission on the Status of Women has been named one of Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women 11 times and has been vocal about the importance of differences in the workplace, whether it be professional or personal, and how it leads to a better product and working environment.   Tune in as hosts Dee Martin and Caitlin Sickles sit down with Beth Brooke to discuss how to become a “changemaker” in a world that deprioritizes gender and equity. From car safety standards to LGBTQ+ rights, Beth breaks down all the ways in which she has advocated for greater inclusion in professional spaces. Ever wonder about the accuracy of test dummies? Thinking about becoming more involved in advocacy? Or are you just really interested about Beth's rise to stardom as an Indiana basketball legend? Tune in to learn about all this, and more!

In this episode we spoke with Sareta Ashraph, an international criminal barrister currently consulting for the Center for Justice and Accountability and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. During the conversation, Sareta reflects on her extensive experience investigating atrocity crimes, as well as her work with the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria and their determination in 2016 that the crime of genocide was being perpetrated in Iraq. She also discusses the gendered nature and impact of atrocity crimes across a variety of country situations, as well as the current gaps inhibiting justice for atrocities perpetrated against marginalized groups.

Dinkar P. Srivastava joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1978. In 1993-94, as Director (UNP), he was part of successful Indian lobbying efforts against four Pakistani attempts to have resolutions on J&K adopted in UN General Assembly and UN Commission on Human Rights. He was involved in the drafting of National Human Rights Commission statute. As Joint Secretary (UNP), he participated in Indian lobbying efforts to contain the diplomatic fallout of the Pokhran II nuclear tests and prevent the internationalization of the J&K issue during the Kargil war (1999). He dealt with Indian candidature for permanent membership of the UN Security Council, UN Peace-keeping and Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. He was a member of the Indian delegations to the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, and the International Court of Justice in the case of Aerial Incident of 1999 (Pakistan v. India). In 2011-15, as Indian Ambassador to Iran, he negotiated the MOU for Indian participation in Chabahar Port. His book 'Forgotten Kashmir: The Other Side of the Line of Control' examines the evolution of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) over the past seven decades. It includes major milestones like the 'tribal' invasion in 1947-48, the Sudhan revolt in the 1950s, the Ayub era, the Simla Agreement, the adoption of an 'Interim Constitution of 1974' and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.in/Forgotten-Kashmir-Other-Side-Control/dp/9390327768

She's one of the world's most effective champions of women's rights, human rights, and democratic values. For Women's History Month, we speak with Felice Gaer, director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. Gaer, who fights for religious freedom, the rights of women, and against antisemitism, highlights the importance of women's voices in an often-male dominated field. She has been appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving five terms (three as chair and two as vice chair), and was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture.  *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. _____ Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Felice Gaer _____ Show Notes:   Read: JBI Appeal on the One-Year Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine   Listen: 10 Trailblazing Jewish Women on AJC's People of the Pod Dr. Ahmed Shaheed on first UN human rights report wholly dedicated to antisemitism    Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod   You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org   If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. _____   Transcript of Interview with Felice Gaer   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Felice Gaer has served as the director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of human rights, affectionately known here as JBI since 1993. During that time, she has specifically focused on the rights of religious freedom, the rights of women, the prohibition of torture and the struggle against antisemitism globally. She has been appointed a public member of at least nine US delegations to United Nations Human Rights negotiations, including the Vienna World Conference on human rights in 1993. And the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. She was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture. In fact, she served five terms, and she was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she served as chair and advised the President and Congress on US human rights policy.    And even though she's not a lawyer or a court justice, on March 30, she receives the Honorary Member award of the American Society of International Law, the preeminent international society in this field, as we mark International Women's Day this week and women's history this month, Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.    Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.    Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?    Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses?   Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there?   Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that.   Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion.   Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?    Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about?   Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating antisemitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it?   Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen?   Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report?   Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

There has been increasing attention to the issue of food insecurity among college students. Estimates vary, but to provide some perspective, one report found that a staggering 30% of all college students experienced food insecurity at some point in their college careers. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the US temporarily extended the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to college-aged students. But now this pandemic help is set to expire, impacting more than three million college students who have relied on this program for food. Today we speak with Heather Taylor, a former US delegate to the United Nations, and now managing director of Bread for the World. Having experienced severe food insecurity as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University, she now advocates for SNAP expansion for college students and other marginalized groups facing food insecurity. Interview Summary   This is a really interesting topic and an important one because so many people are affected. I know recently there have been more surveys, more awareness to the issue and so finally people are beginning to pay attention. I know judging from the response at our own university, that universities are paying attention to this too. But let's talk about the bigger picture of this: how the benefits at the national level are important. Tell me a little bit more about your work with Bread for the World.   Bread for the World is a faith-based organization that works alongside community groups and congregations across the country to urge primarily members of Congress to pass legislation that addresses hunger and poverty, both here in the United States and abroad as well. We spend a lot of our time equipping community groups so that they are empowered to speak with their members of Congress and talk about issues that are impacting them on the ground.   I mentioned in my introduction that you experienced food insecurity yourself as a college student. How has that impacted your work today?   It really underscores the conviction and the passion that I have around food insecurity, including the way in which it impacts college students. It's such a critical time in one's life, if one is blessed to have the opportunity to attend college, to shape their future, their career path. It's essential that students are nourished and that they have the time necessary to invest in their studies, in some cases extracurricular activities, to perform well and to be able to compete in the market, to contribute to society as a whole. I have experienced firsthand how difficult it can be, what a struggle it is to worry about working on top of investing some 60 to 80 hours a week in one's studies and classes alone, to worry about where one's next meal is coming from. It's really put me in a position to hopefully speak effectively firsthand about what one's experience may be. But also, about what some of the practical solutions are to address food insecurity that individuals, and in this case college students themselves may be experiencing today.   That this problem occurs among college students might come as a surprise to some people because they think kids go to college, they pay for tuition and they pay for room and board and they get fed meals in their dorms and things like that. How does food insecurity come about?   So a lot of times the financial aid, be it student loans or other grants, goes toward college tuition, but not necessarily meal programs. Students are given options to choose meal programs. Some may be three to five meals per week. That was typically the program that I selected, not necessarily 14 to 21 square meals which is what is necessary to ensure that students are not food insecure. That is because these individuals simply may not be able to afford these meal programs. Secondly, while they may not be able to afford them, they could under certain laws be eligible to receive SNAP benefits, but oftentimes students aren't even aware that they may be eligible. While they may have access to certain programs, like federal work study programs that are advertised when students are filling out FAFSA forms, for example, information around the SNAP program may not be as readily available. Because again, any support that they may receive through loans or grants is typically going toward tuition, perhaps books and other necessities, then food security is still an issue that is at stake.   Very helpful background. I know in addition to that, there are large numbers of individuals who don't live on campus, like those who are attending community colleges or graduate and professional students who may not be living in dormitories and don't have meal plans and things like that. It's easy to see how so many people might be affected by this. Let's talk about the SNAP changes at the onset of the pandemic. What can you tell us about that?   Sure. As a result of the expansions that were made available at the onset of the pandemic, students eligible for SNAP benefits could receive up to an additional $95 a month. This is a decent amount that can help put a dent in someone's monthly food bill on a regular basis. The second important change that was made as a result of the expansion is that students who were eligible for SNAP, because they were eligible for the federal work study program did not necessarily have to participate in the work study program in order to get the SNAP benefit. Again, this is important because before the pandemic, students who participated in work study if they were attending school more than halftime they had to work at least 20 hours a week. We know through various studies that typically students are investing three hours in study time for every credit hour that they are signed up for in a given semester. Many students are enrolled for 12 credit hours. That means that they are studying approximately 36 hours on top of their 12 hours of classes. And so we see how they're already investing a significant amount of time and then required to work an additional 20 hours. And so when we're looking at students who are spending some 50, 60 hours and in my case personally, because I had to register for 15 credit hours, up to 80 hours a week. It creates a highly stressed environment for students to work in. At the same time, they're expected to compete, they're expected to make good grades, they're expected to be on par with their peers who may have other support systems in place. The pandemic benefit expansion allowed students to participate regardless of whether they tacked on an additional 20 hours to their already 40 to 60 hour work week was an essential benefit. This is one that we at Bread would like to see continue.   You mentioned some of the hurdles for college students who could potentially utilize SNAP benefits, the work study requirement is one. Are there others the college students have to face?   The work study is one of the essential requirements that they have to face. There are some exceptions. For example, if a student has a differing ability or another term might be a disability. There are some exceptions, but they're so specialized that we want to make sure that students who may be on their own, may be low income themselves, not receiving any support from their families are able to still access the benefit without having to partake in this requirement.   - What's known at the moment about food insecurity among college students?   There are studies that were actually taken right before the pandemic. One in particular done by Temple University showed that nearly 167,000 surveyed, 40% of these individuals experienced food insecurity. And we also know that of these fewer than one in five were accessing SNAP. Again, it speaks to the lack of awareness and how severely underutilized the program is.   You've painted a really striking picture of the number of people affected and how seriously it can affect their lives. You mentioned several really important things. One is just the stress of not knowing whether you'll have enough food or having to have so many requirements imposed on you, work requirements, study requirements, getting food requirements can really add an awful lot of extra pressure to what's a pretty pressured time of life anyway for people. And then adding to that, what you mentioned at the outset that an under-nourished person can't learn and function as well as somebody who's well-nourished is really is very serious issue. What do you think might be done?   The hope is that some of the expansion that was put in place, specifically in correlation to the pandemic, that this would continue, that students would still have the opportunity, those who are eligible, to receive up to $95 a month. When we think about inflation and when we think about how high food prices are, we know how necessary this is. While the benefit may suddenly expire in a couple of months, inflation will not necessarily disappear. Food insecurity that was already high before the pandemic will still continue to persist. We know that some 40% of individuals who attend college come from low income families. So the need is still there. What we would like to see is that the availability of this amount of up to $95 a month would continue. We would also like to see the hourly work requirement be dropped. Those who are eligible for federal work study should not be mandated to work an additional 20 hours a week when they're already investing 40 to 60 hours a week in a given week in their studies. And so we want to ensure that they can invest their time, their energy in their studies, in their schoolwork, what they are there to do, and that they have the energy, that they have access nutrition to be able to perform well.   Those things sure make sense. Let me ask you one final question. You mentioned that only a fraction of the students who are eligible for SNAP are actually enrolled in the program. Are there efforts underway that you're aware of to just get that number higher so that students are made aware they're eligible and they have some coaching or assistance on how to sign up?   To my knowledge, there are no efforts and there's no requirement in the law to make students aware. So this is one of the changes that we are advocating for, that schools would be required by the law to ensure that all students are made aware of the program, what the eligibility requirements or criteria may be so they can access it because it is available to them.   That sounds like something where the colleges themselves could be a big help. They provide lots of guidance to students on all kinds of things. And boy, this could be one thing where colleges could really take the lead in letting the students know about these benefits and providing some help to get people signed up. I'm not aware of any places doing that, although they might very well exist. But if they are out there, it would be good to create a model that could be replicated in other places.   Exactly. As I understand, there are a number of student groups now that may help to make students aware of food donation programs, of food banks. I was informed recently that some schools allow students to donate some of their meals that they already purchased through the school program to their peers. While these programs are helpful it means that students, their food security is contingent on the generosity of their peers, that their access to nutrition is contingent on food that is made available through the food bank system. We know in recent years because of the pandemic, also because of inflation that it has been difficult for food banks to keep stocked up and to also have the number of volunteers that are necessary to distribute. Again, we support these programs, they are important, but alone they do not have the ability to really put dent in hunger like a federally supported program does. We know that the SNAP program is the most effective anti-hunger program in America. It is our moral responsibility to ensure that our young people as they are eligible, have access to this program as well. It's important to know that students who are food insecure are 43% less likely to graduate than their food secure peers and 61% less likely to get an advanced degree. When we think about helping to ensure students ability to succeed personally, but also their ability to contribute to our society and economy, it makes strategic and moral sense to ensure that they are food secure.   Bio   Heather Taylor oversees Bread's public policy and program divisions and operations as Managing Director. She is passionate about developing communications and advocacy strategies to organize and inspire faith communities, policymakers, and partners to engage in our mission to end hunger. Heather spent her career as a dedicated advocate lifting the voices of people who experience racial, gender, and economic injustice. She previously led organizations to increase access to legal and social services, as well as protect the rights and dignity of historically marginalized populations. She advocates to secure the economic rights of women in Sub-Saharan Africa as a fellow at International Justice Mission, a Christian nonprofit seeking to protect people in poverty from violence by transforming justice systems; and twice served on U.S. delegations headed by the UN Commission on the Status of Women to promote women's political participation in emerging democratic societies. Heather holds a J.D. from the University of Iowa, a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary and a B.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.  

In this episode, Dr. Victor Cha is joined by Ambassador Robert Joseph and Greg Scarlatoiu to discuss their recently released report for the National Institute for Public Policy regarding North Korea's current human rights situation, the Kim family regime, and the North Korean human rights movement ten years after the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK.

This Week's Sponsors: – Boll & Branch Bedding & Sheets – 20% Off + Free Shipping | USE CODE: MONEWS – Athletic Greens – AG1 Powder + 1 year of free Vitamin D & 5 free travel packs Headlines:  – Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates Again: The Impact on Your Wallet (01:35) – Tragic Death of “Ellen Show” DJ and SYTYCD Dancer Stephen “Twitch” Boss (06:20) – Georgia Looks To End Runoff Elections; Inside the Racist Roots (13:30) – US Helps Boot Iran From the UN Commission on Women (16:00) – One Month Later: Update on University of Idaho Murders Investigation (19:00) – Paul Pelosi Attack Police Cam Video Released, Attacker Appears in Court (21:20) – Another School District Is Adopting a 4-Day School Week?  (23:50) – The World Cup Final Is Set: Argentina vs. France (26:50) – On This Day In History: Dr. Dre & “Did I Do That?!?!” (28:30) – Please remember to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. – Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022. Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast. Follow Mo News on all platforms: Newsletter: https://monews.bulletin.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mosheh/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mosheh Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoshehNews Snapchat: https://t.snapchat.com/pO9xpLY9 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/moshehnews TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mosheh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the UN and former Middle East Director at the National Security Council in the Obama White House Hagar Chemali joins Ron Steslow to discuss the protests in Iran (01:46) What started the protests and how they've evolved (06:19) How these protests compare to previous ones (08:08) The role of the Supreme Leader in Iran (10:57) Why it's difficult to get accurate news from Iran (15:55) Why ending the mandatory hijab rule wouldn't end the protests  (23:00) What we know about executions of protestors (31:41) Tension of US interests vs democratic values (55:40) Iran's place on the UN Commission on the Status of Women (1:01:37) How the protests in Iran connect to the other protests happening around the globe You should watch Oh My World on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3WkfAXK Follow Hagar and Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HagarChemali https://twitter.com/RonSteslow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comprehensive coverage of the day's news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. President Biden warns democracy is on the ballot and urges voters to repudiate election deniers The U.S. calls for the expulsion of Iran from the United Nations commission on the status of women The warring sides in Ethiopia's conflict with Tigray rebels reach agreement to end hostilities A new study says workers' fear of retaliation makes them hesitate to report violations     Image: Linnaea Mallette has released this “Vote Ballot Box” image under Public Domain license The post President Biden urges voters to cast ballots for candidates who will uphold democracy; The U.S. says Iran should be expelled from UN Commission on Status of Women; Federal Reserve hikes benchmark rate again appeared first on KPFA.

Hear: About my shock when I read the treacherous words of the caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, how he panicked to get votes, and how he grovelled to the Arabs to get theirs. And how he brought the sleeping Arab/Israeli conflict to the forefront of the UN agenda by supporting it during his speech to the United Nations Assembly. Another: Appeal to vote tactically with your head not your heart to get the government we need. We don't want to waste votes on small parties that get nowhere. Vote for the largest one, Likud. To make sure of a good right-wing majority. Why: The ridiculous notion of a two-state solution will never work. Presiden Biden who taks of ‘Palestinian' entitlement needs to learn history. You can hear about that in Walter's interview with the American Ambassador which is available now on 'The Walter Bingham File'. Also: Why Israel's President Isaak Herzog should not have accepted Biden's invitation to Washington, He is going next week. The: Foulmouthed Yair Golan, Knesset member for far-left Meretz party is at it again, calling Netanyahu with unparliamentary language. He also compares some events of antisemitic Europe with Israel. There: Is once more not unexpected news from the UN Commission of Enquiry into human rights, accusing Israel of war crimes and calling to arrest our leaders. And: More The Walter Bingham File 25OCT2022 - PODCAST

In today's podcast: The UN Commission on Human Rights calls for international action to end the human suffering in South Sudan. Plus, Nigerian kidnappers target hospital patients in the northern Niger state - killing some and going of with many others. And, Zimbabwe approves the use of a long term anti-HIV injection. Those stories and more in this podcast presented by Hassan Arouni.

The Chair of the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has found reasonable grounds to believe war crimes have been committed there, since Russia's invasion of 24 February. On Tuesday, the Commission presented its first detailed written findings to the UN General Assembly. Chair Erik Møse says there's an undeniable need for accountability for the crimes which have been committed - the vast majority by Russian forces, although there are several instances involving Ukrainian troops. In an interview with UN News, he told Dina Neskorozhana that the contents are report are simply “the truth as we have observed it”.

A UN Commission on human rights reports on major atrocities being perpetrated by both the TPLF and Ethiopian Government forces particularly in Tigray... We hear how civilians have suffered. Also, Ugandan authorities confirm an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease... A twenty-four year old man has been identified, but could there have been a handful of others before hand? And Iyanu, a child superhero based on Yoruba mythology created by Roye Okupe is a graphic novel turned Cartoon to be streamed by HBO and Cartoon Network. These stories and more in this podcast presented by Bola Mosuro.

A federal judge will decide today whether to appoint a special master to review documents removed from former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. Mary Peltola is the first Alaska Native to fill Alaska's only US house seat. The UN Commission on Human Rights released a damning report detailing abuses against ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang China.