The Foreign Office has published new reporting on 28 Countries of Concern, along with updates on the case study countries featured in the annual human rights report. The quarterly updates cover the period from July to September 2012.

The 2011 Human Rights and Democracy Report is online to make it as accessible to the public as possible. It highlights the UK’s human rights policies and concerns on key issues, and features 28 Countries of Concern where the FCO has the most serious wide-ranging human rights concerns.

Festus Aboagye, Senior Research Fellow, Conflict Management and Peacebuilding

The United Nations Security Council and the international community should not place too much hope in the impossible mission Lakhdar Brahimi has assumed, taking over from Kofi Annan as the new joint Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and the Arab League in Syria.

One can only wish him well, especially considering the history of both this position and the uprising in Syria.

By Berta Acero

CAIRO, 23 May 2012 – A regional meeting of experts held in Cairo could result in a doubling of the number of Arab countries that systematically report on disaster losses.

UNISDR brought together over 40 participants from 15 Arab countries to discuss and exchange experiences on establishing national disaster loss databases. These disaster inventories (www.desinventar.net) enable countries to analyse disaster trends and their impacts in a systematic manner through the collection of historical disaster data.

Abstract

As Sunni Islamists gain political power, minority faiths are likely to be vulnerable.

By Abeer Mohammed - Iraq
ICR Issue 388, 26 Mar 12

Protests in the Arab world seem to be moving from the ideal of establishing democracy towards increasing polarisation and sectarianism in the region.

Time to replicate the ‘mobile miracle’ in broadband

Geneva, 5 March 2012 – New figures released today at ITU’s Connect Arab Summit in Doha, Qatar show that information and communication technology (ICT) uptake continues to accelerate across the Arab region, but underline the need for more effort to be put into rolling out broadband infrastructure to meet burgeoning demand from a young, tech-savvy population.

Preface

3149th FOREIGN AFFAIRS Council meeting

Brussels, 27 February 2012

The Council adopted the following conclusions:

"1. Ahead of the 19th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), the EU reaffirms its strong support to the Human Rights Council and welcomes the progress made in performing its mandate over the last year.

Human Rights Council
Nineteenth session
Agenda items 2 and 3
Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the
High Commissioner and the Secretary-General
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development

Summary