GAZA - John Kerry in Israel - Peace Talks

Yahoo News ... so far killed 649 Palestinians and 31 Israelis, with neither Israel nor Hamas showing willingness to end hostilities, despite days of diplomatic efforts to coax them into a truce. - Possible war crimes - [...] In Geneva, UN rights chief Navi Pillay said Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip could amount to war crimes, while also condemning indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas. "There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay told an emergency session on Israel's Gaza offensive at the UN Human Rights Council, citing attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians, including children. She added that Israeli children and other civilians also had a right to live without constant fear of rocket attacks. Despite appeals from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for both sides to "stop fighting", Israel has insisted it would keep up its punishing campaign until it smashes cross-border tunnels used by Gaza militants to attack the Jewish state. After touching down in Tel Aviv at 0800 GMT, Kerry set off for Jerusalem where he was to meet visiting Ban before travelling straight to the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, a State Department official said. He was later to return to Tel Aviv for talks at the defence ministry with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official said. He was expected to return to Cairo in the evening. [...] police confirming they had arrested 800 Arab Israelis and another 295 people in east Jerusalem in the past three weeks. Source - Yahoo News - undated  - here.

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COMMENT


Somehow I don't think there will be any action taken whatever the UN says.

Kerry trying to make peace with Palestinians is strange when he's a firm Israel supporter.

Mahmud Abbas is the official recognised go-to; but I think Hamas government is separate to him.

Peace talks must be awkward.

UNHCHR - The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age Report - Presentation due October

Article

Navanethem "Navi" Pillay

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

16 July 2014 – The top United Nations human rights official today warned of the “disturbing” lack of transparency in governmental surveillance policies and practices, “including de facto coercion of private sector companies to provide sweeping access to information and data relating to private individuals without the latter’s knowledge or consent.”

“This is severely hindering efforts to ensure accountability for any resulting human rights violations, or even to make us aware that such violations are taking place, despite a clear international legal framework laying down Governments’ obligations to protect our right to privacy,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay said in Geneva today.

Introducing a report compiled by her Office entitled, The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age, she stressed the need for vigilance and procedural safeguards against governmental surveillance programmes.

“The onus is on the State to demonstrate that such interference is neither arbitrary nor unlawful,” Ms. Pillay said, noting that article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.”

According to the report, to be presented this October to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, governmental mass surveillance is “emerging as a dangerous habit rather than an exceptional measure” and practices in many States reveal “a lack of adequate national legislation and/or enforcement, weak procedural safeguards, and ineffective oversight.”

The High Commissioner’s report points out that the secret nature of specific surveillance powers brings with it a greater risk of arbitrary exercise of discretion which, in turn, demands greater precision in the rule governing the exercise of discretion, as well as additional oversight. Therefore, States must establish independent methods to monitor such surveillance one that include administrative, judicial and parliamentary branches of government.

...continues @ source ...

SOURCE - UN News Centre - here. 

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COMMENT

Re:  Article 17

US State Department arbitrarily opens incoming overseas mail and there's been all the NSA snooping and so on ... so it's all well and good to have these UNHCHR 'rights', but they don't seem to translate to anything in practical terms.

Anyway, report will be release in October.