Why UN bodies are failing over human rights

THE world marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this week. Media freedom group Reporters San Frontières issued its own report on December 10, giving a poor mark to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the main UN body concerned with the issues. Says the RSF:

The UN Human Rights Council is doing little better than its predecessor, the now-abolished Commission on Human Rights, which was completely discredited over
the years, especially when it named a Libyan as its president. The council has the failings of all UN bodies, where member-states are both judges and judged.
States with repressive governments are elected to the council and thus tasked with ensuring respect in other countries for rights they themselves are abusing on a daily basis. Until this absurd situation is ended, the United Nations cannot be said to be fulfilling its goal of protecting human rights.
The use of human rights by countries for their own purposes will not end until the UN Security Council and the whole system of world governance is reformed and enlarged. This issue has been highlighted by the present economic and environmental crisis.
If the UN does not manage to end it, the council will
fail in its mission.

Check out the full RSF report.
Human rights in post-coup Fiji - Why might is not right
Pacific media human rights issues
The Witness take on human rights

Journo killing season begins again in Philippines

A newspaper columnist has been gunned down in Manila suburb - the first journalist to be murdered this year. Journalists have been murdered or assaulted with some alarming frequency that authorities established a special police unit to investigate cases of violence against the media.
Reporters Without Borders has been quick to put out a statement that it is "shocked" by the murder of newspaper journalist Benefredo Acabal in Pasig City on April 7 and calls on the authorities to do everything possible to establish the motives and bring those responsible to justice. Acabal, 34, was a columnist for The Pilipino Newsmen, a Cavite tabloid.
He was shot five times at close range by a man on a motorcycle and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital. The police officer in charge of the case, Lardy Ignacio, said it was too soon to say if the murder was linked to the victim's work as a journalist. The police are looking into the possibility that it was linked to Acabal's involvement in a trucking business.

• Reporters Without Borders
• Janitor key witness in newsman's killing
• RSF report on the Philippines media freedom 2008
  

Global search for the BOBS - best blogs!

I've had some positive feedback from Vincent Brossel of RSF in Paris about Cafe Pacific. Good one. Thanks. And a word about RSF's partnership with Germany's public broadcaster Deutsche Welle in the annual search for the best blogs. Some of those bloggers that stirred up recent strife with Fiji's military regime should have a shot. “BOBs - Best of the Blogs” is running for the fourth year running.
What are The BOBs?
For the next four weeks, internet users are invited to go to www.thebobs.com to nominate the best blogs in 15 categories. The competition is open to blogs, podcasts and videoblogs in the following 10 languages - Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Portugese, Russian and Spanish.
The BOBs are the world’s biggest international blog awards and offer a broad overview of the blogosphere, the rapidly evolving world of weblogs, videoblogs and podcasts. The winners are chosen by the public and a jury. Last year, more than 5,500 blogs were nominated and more than 100,000 Internet users took part in the online voting.

All bloggers and blog fans can go to the BOBs website until 30 September to nominate their favourite blogs. An international jury of journalists, media specialists and bloggers will then choose a shortlist of finalists. The winners will be determined by a combination of online voting from 23 October to 15 November and jury decision.

Good luck bloggers!

More detail on The Bobs website or at Deutsche Welle.