Countries that carried out executions in 2011 did so at an alarming rate but those employing capital punishment have decreased by more than a third compared to a decade ago. Only 10 percent of countries in the world, 20 out of 198, carried out executions last year.
People were executed or sentenced to death for a range of offenses including adultery and sodomy in Iran, blasphemy in Pakistan, sorcery in Saudi Arabia, the trafficking of human bones in the Republic of Congo, and drug offenses in more than 10 countries. Methods of execution in 2011 included beheading, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
Some 18,750 people remained under sentence of death at the end of 2011 and at least 676 people were executed worldwide.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
It’s International Women’s Day. The event, born of the socialist movement in the United States the early 1900s, has spread across the world in the century since.
But the day looks very different across the globe, much like the differences in the lives of women worldwide. Here’s how the event is being celebrated across in different parts of the world:
Pakistan: Female family members of missing Pakistanis are using the day to reiterate demands to know where their loved ones are. “For years, human rights activists have claimed that Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and other security agencies in Pakistan routinely abduct men without legal justification,” The Times recently reported.
Venezuela: Backers of President Hugo Chavez marched for the women’s event. Chavez, in power for 13 years, faces a challenge from candidate Henrique Capriles this fall, as frustration rises over surging homicide rates and the stagnant economy.
Turkey: Women splattered with artificial blood protested domestic violence, while the Turkish parliament passed laws that will try to protect women and children from abuse. “The discriminative implementations against women and domestic violence should be stopped,” President Abdullah Gul said, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.
Sudan: The day meant freedom for about 4,000 prisoners in Sudan who are being released to mark the day, the Associated Press reported. The prisoners included hundreds of women and children.
Peru: Feminist groups are reportedly calling on President Ollanta Humala to follow through on his campaign promises to ensure that the rights of Peruvian women are respected.
Egypt: Hundreds of women marched to demand the right to help draft the new constitution. “Women have yet to gain any significant influence in the new Egypt, revealing the complexities of defining gender rights in a nation colored by Islam, inundated by Western media permissiveness and ruled by military men operating in a cloistered realm of gold stars and salutes,” The Times recently reported.
Somalia: Women held a parade, the first one of its kind since the Shabab, an Islamic militant group, was ejected from the capital, Mogadishu, the Associated Press reported.
United States: It didn’t happen today, but last week the United Nations fund for gender equality announced in New York City that it would give out $10.5 million in grants to groups working to empower women in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia.
Know of another interesting event marking International Women’s Day around the world?
“The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity — between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?” ~Kofi A. Annan, Fmr. Sec. General of the United Nations
Thirty years ago, the first five cases of what is now known as the acquired immune deficiency syndrome were reported in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The amount of knowledge gained since then has been extraordinary, and the pace at which research findings have been translated into lifesaving treatments and tools of prevention is unprecedented, although much remains to be done with regard to delivering the fruits of this research to the people who need them most.
The discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus as the cause of AIDS in 1983-1984 was followed by an understanding of how HIV leads to AIDS; the natural history and epidemiology of the disease; the creation of a diagnostic blood test; and the development over the years of more than 30 antiretroviral drugs. The approval of the first protease inhibitors in 1995-1996 paved the way for powerful, multi-drug antiretroviral therapy. The many combination regimens now available using different classes of antiretroviral drugs have dramatically improved the quality of life and extended the life expectancy of people with HIV. An HIV-infected person properly treated with this combination therapy — and provided other needed care and services — now can expect to live for decades after being diagnosed.
Antiretroviral treatment regimens also can prevent HIV infection. When given to pregnant HIV-infected women and their newborns, these drugs have been enormously successful in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Moreover, just three weeks ago, a rigorous, controlled clinical trial conducted in nine countries confirmed another potent way to apply treatment as prevention.
The study results were striking: Among more than 1,700 heterosexual couples in which one partner was HIV-infected and the other was not, starting combination antiretroviral therapy immediately in the infected partner when blood tests indicate his or her immune system is still strong resulted in a 96% reduction in HIV transmission to the uninfected partner, compared with deferring treatment until the same tests showed the immune system to be weaker.
This recent report confirms that combination therapy not only benefits the infected individual but also can reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to others. By confirming that this type of therapy can do double duty as treatment and prevention, this study has energized the medical, public health, and activist communities. In addition to its role in protecting babies from infection, “treatment as prevention” to block sexual transmission now can be added to our toolkit of proven HIV prevention interventions, which also includes behavioral modification, condom distribution, the provision of clean needles and syringes to injection drug users, medically supervised adult male circumcision, and other approaches.
Meanwhile, other recent progress in HIV research gives us hope that we soon will have additional prevention tools. Notably, a once-a-day pill combining two antiretroviral drugs was shown to reduce the risk of HIV acquisition in men who have sex with men (MSM), and an antiretroviral-based, vaginally applied gel did the same for heterosexual women.
Although a protective HIV vaccine remains elusive, we are encouraged by the recent demonstration that a vaccine tested in Thailand provided modest protection against HIV. Researchers now are examining blood samples and data from the Thai trial to determine how the vaccine prevented HIV infections, information that will help guide efforts to improve on those results.
Scientists also are pursuing many other research avenues, including structure-based vaccine design. With this approach, researchers characterize in exquisite detail key molecules on the HIV virus and use these structures to design new components for next-generation HIV vaccine candidates.
Entering the fourth decade of HIV/AIDS, our task is to build on these advances and deliver scientifically validated interventions to everyone who needs them, both in the United States and abroad. Six in ten HIV-infected people in developing countries who need combination antiretroviral therapy are not receiving it, which puts their health and that of their sexual partners at risk.
Domestically, access to treatment and care also is not optimal. A recent analysis estimated that of the 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States, approximately 20% are unaware of their infection. And within the entire group of infected people, only about 19% have a viral load that has been driven to undetectable levels by combination therapy. Both at home and globally, greater numbers of HIV-infected individuals need to be identified early in the course of their disease through expanded voluntary HIV testing programs and linkage to appropriate care and antiretroviral treatment.
In addition, prevention programs using proven tools must be dramatically “scaled up,” refined, improved, and made more cost-effective. At the same time, we must continue to develop additional effective prevention strategies.
We also must find innovative approaches to curing HIV/AIDS by eradicating or permanently suppressing the virus in infected people, thereby eliminating the need for lifelong antiretroviral therapy. In this regard, important new research is being undertaken by the National Institutes of Health and other organizations. A robust research effort is critical to address the malignancies, cardiovascular and metabolic complications, and premature aging associated with long-term HIV disease and/or antiretroviral therapy.
Despite these challenges and the huge burden of this modern-day plague, we now look at the fight against HIV/AIDS – and our chances of prevailing – with considerably more optimism than we previously have felt. With the medical and public health tools now or soon-to-be available, controlling and ending the global HIV/AIDS pandemic are feasible goals.
Unfortunately, we are in a difficult situation of considerable global constraints on resources to support this goal. Every effort must be made to efficiently apply existing resources so that proven interventions are delivered in the most cost-effective manner. In addition, public-sector, commercial and philanthropic commitments to HIV/AIDS research and implementation of proven findings must be sustained and strengthened with the investment of additional resources to ensure that HIV treatment and prevention services are universally available to the people who need them, wherever they live.With a global commitment, we can control and ultimately end the HIV/AIDS pandemic. On this commemoration of the 30-year anniversary, let us recommit ourselves to that goal.
This column is provided by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health-care policy organization that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
For many in the West, poverty is almost synonymous with hunger. Indeed, the announcement by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 2009 that more than 1 billion people are suffering from hunger grabbed headlines in a way that any number of World Bank estimates of how many poor people live on less than a dollar a day never did.
But is it really true? Are there really more than a billion people going to bed hungry each night? Our research on this question has taken us to rural villages and teeming urban slums around the world, collecting data and speaking with poor people about what they eat and what else they buy, from Morocco to Kenya, Indonesia to India. We’ve also tapped into a wealth of insights from our academic colleagues. What we’ve found is that the story of hunger, and of poverty more broadly, is far more complex than any one statistic or grand theory; it is a world where those without enough to eat may save up to buy a TV instead, where more money doesn’t necessarily translate into more food, and where making rice cheaper can sometimes even lead people to buy less rice.
But unfortunately, this is not always the world as the experts view it. All too many of them still promote sweeping, ideological solutions to problems that defy one-size-fits-all answers, arguing over foreign aid, for example, while the facts on the ground bear little resemblance to the fierce policy battles they wage.
Jeffrey Sachs, an advisor to the United Nations and director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, is one such expert. In books and countless speeches and television appearances, he has argued that poor countries are poor because they are hot, infertile, malaria-infested, and often landlocked; these factors, however, make it hard for them to be productive without an initial large investment to help them deal with such endemic problems. But they cannot pay for the investments precisely because they are poor — they are in what economists call a “poverty trap.” Until something is done about these problems, neither free markets nor democracy will do very much for them.
But then there are others, equally vocal, who believe that all of Sachs’s answers are wrong. William Easterly, who battles Sachs from New York University at the other end of Manhattan, has become one of the most influential aid critics in his books, The Elusive Quest for Growth and The White Man’s Burden. Dambisa Moyo, an economist who worked at Goldman Sachs and the World Bank, has joined her voice to Easterly’s with her recent book, Dead Aid. Both argue that aid does more bad than good. It prevents people from searching for their own solutions, while corrupting and undermining local institutions and creating a self-perpetuating lobby of aid agencies. The best bet for poor countries, they argue, is to rely on one simple idea: When markets are free and the incentives are right, people can find ways to solve their problems. They do not need handouts from foreigners or their own governments. In this sense, the aid pessimists are actually quite optimistic about the way the world works. According to Easterly, there is no such thing as a poverty trap.
This debate cannot be solved in the abstract. To find out whether there are in fact poverty traps, and, if so, where they are and how to help the poor get out of them, we need to better understand the concrete problems they face. Some aid programs help more than others, but which ones? Finding out required us to step out of the office and look more carefully at the world. In 2003, we founded what became the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL. A key part of our mission is to research by using randomized control trials — similar to experiments used in medicine to test the effectiveness of a drug — to understand what works and what doesn’t in the real-world fight against poverty. In practical terms, that meant we’d have to start understanding how the poor really live their lives.
Earth Day, April 22, 2011| Earth Day Network The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.
But Earth Day Network does not stop there.
All of EDN’s activities, whether greening schools or promoting green economic policies at home and abroad, inform and energize populations so they will act to secure a healthy future for themselves and their children. With its partner organizations, EDN provides civic engagement opportunities at the local, state, national and global levels. At every turn, EDN works to broaden the definition of “environment” to include all issues that affect our health, our communities and our environment, such as greening deteriorated schools, creating green jobs and investment, and promoting activism to stop air and water pollution.
Over the last 40 years, EDN has executed successful environmental campaigns on issues ranging climate change and drinking water to voter registration and saving the whale. EDN is a recognized leader in creating civically–oriented innovative programs with partners outside of the environmental movement to tackle new challenges. Our core programs today focus on:
Greening Schools and Promoting Environmental Education
In partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council and The Clinton Foundation, EDN’s Green Schools Campaign, aims to green all of America’s K-12 schools within a generation. Green schools save money, conserve energy and water, and foster better-performing, healthier students. EDN’s Educator’s Network, used by over 30,000 teachers and administrators nationwide, provides innovative tools and resources to promote civic participation and to develop a sense of environmental responsibility among students of all ages. Together, EDN’s Education and Policy Teams organize federal and state legislative campaigns to green school facilities, improve school food, and enhance environmental education and civic engagement. These include the Healthy Schools Act, No Child Left Inside, the National Civic Education Project, No Idling and the Climate Change Educators’ Grant. EDN is also working internationally to promote green schools and improve environmental education.
Accelerating the Global Green Economy
For years, EDN has created dialogues and conferences engaging civil society, corporate, and government leaders on how to transition from a traditional, fossil fuel-based economy to one based on renewable energy, energy efficiency and other sustainable development principles. Our Global Day of Conversation continues to provide local government leaders with an opportunity to engage with their constituents in a dialogue about renewable energy, sustainability and the green economy. As in 2010, EDN will co-host the Climate Leadership Gala with Sir Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room at the Creating Climate Wealth Conference, convening the world’s most successful green business leaders. EDN’s newest initiative, Women and the Green Economy (WAGE™), is promoting the unique leadership role women bring to advancing green economic and investment policies at the international, national and local levels.
A Billion Acts of Green®
From greening schools to hosting town hall discussions on clean energy investment and green jobs, Earth Day Network leads its network in thousands of Earth Day events and actions worldwide each year. To catalyze global environmental activism, Earth Day Network has chosen A Billion Acts of Green® as the theme for Earth Day 2011. A Billion Acts of Green®–the largest environmental service campaign in the world–inspires and rewards simple individual acts and larger organizational initiatives that further the goal of measurably reducing carbon emissions and supporting sustainability. The goal is to register one billion actions in advance of the global Earth Summit in Rio in 2012.
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries/territories participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries/territories officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.
On Saturday 27 March, Earth Hour 2010 became the biggest Earth Hour ever. A record 128 countries and territories joined the global display of climate action. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Asia Pacific to Europe and Africa to the Americas switched off. People across the world from all walks of life turned off their lights and came together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet.
Earth Hour 2011 will take place on Saturday 26 March at 8.30PM (local time). This Earth Hour we want you to go beyond the hour, so after the lights go back on think about what else you can do to make a difference. Together our actions add up.
Visit our Beyond the Hour platform to share your stories and to get inspiration from the actions our supporters have shared with us already.
Earth Hour by WWF
Earth Hour is organized by WWF. With almost 5 million supporters and a global network in over 100 countries/territories, it’s one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth’s natural environment and build a future where people live in harmony with nature.
Earth Hour Timeline
Turn back the clock on Earth Hour and discover why, how, where and when it all started.
Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) with events taking place all over the world. This global celebration honors women’s success, and reminds of inequities that still need to be redressed. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women’s Day is a national holiday.
In the United States, President Obama proclaimed March 2011 as “Women’s History Month” calling Americans to mark IWD by reflecting on “the extraordinary accomplishments of women” in shaping the country’s history.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the 100 Women Initiative: Empowering Women and Girls through International Exchanges. “So let us mark this day by finding ways to ensure women and girls’ access to education, healthcare, jobs, and credit, and to protect their right to live free from violence,” said Secretary Clinton.
Many of us will celebrate the day with local efforts to support women’s equality on a global level. Others will take the occasion to recognize a woman who has made a difference in her life – whether it is a mentor, mother, sister, or daughter, or girlfriend.
Take a peak at this provocative video that appeared in the UK Guardian. It’s narrated by Judy Dench and stars James Bond star, Daniel Craig. Perhaps, you’ll choose to think about a women who is important to you and pass this message on to her.
Ghulam Haider, 11, is to be married to Faiz Mohammed, 40. She had hoped to be a teacher but was forced to quit her classes when she became engaged. / Photo: Stephanie Sinclair for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, December 16, the House took up the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010. The bill would ensure that child marriage is recognized as a human rights violation, and develop comprehensive strategies to prevent such marriages around the world. The legislation seemed likely to garner strong bipartisan support in Congress, and in the Senate, it did. But last night, the bill was voted down in the House by Republicans who argued the bill is too costly and could lead to increased abortions — gripes the measure’s supporters say have no basis in reality and are just excuses to kill the popular bill.
The measure, introduced by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), passed the Senate by unanimous consent and attracted a list of 42 cosponsors, including Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). It also had the support of nonpartisan groups like the YWCA. On Dec. 6, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, praising the United States for stepping up: “This act illustrates how support for securing a just and healthy life for every woman and girl transcends politics.”
The House version, introduced by Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.), had 112 cosponsors. What’s interesting is that some of them — such as Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) — actually voted against the bill. In the end, only 12 Republicans backed the measure; nine Democrats defected to the GOP side. So what happened?
This week, a GOP whip alert went out about the child marriage legislation, saying that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Committee on Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) all oppose it. The email:
S. 987 authorizes $108 million over 5 years without sufficient oversight of the taxpayers’ money. According to the Congressional Research Service, there is no available, confirmed figure on how much taxpayer funding is already being used to fight child marriage in developing countries and this bill does not address that issue.In contrast, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen has introduced H.R. 6521, which would result in no more than $1 million in potential costs, while making it clear that child marriage is a violation of human rights and that its prevention should be a goal of US foreign policy; requiring the creation of a multi-year strategy; requiring a comprehensive assessment of what the United States is already doing and funding in the effort to fight child marriage; and requiring that the practice of child marriage in other countries be reported each year as part of the annual Human Rights Report.
There are also concerns that funding will be directed to NGOs that promote and perform abortion and efforts to combat child marriage could be usurped as a way to overturn pro-life laws.
The prevalence of child marriage remains alarmingly high worldwide. As CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty and supporting the child marriage prevention bill notes, “More than 60 million girls ages 17 and younger — many as young as 10 — are forced into marriage in developing countries. Many of these girls are married to men more than twice their age. Not only does this unacceptable practice thwart a girl’s education, it endangers her health and often locks her into a life of poverty.”
Jackie and Mike Bezos have donated a personal gift of $25,000 to "The RaiseForWomen challenge," a fundraising initiative supporting nonprofits doing work to empower women and girls around the world. The donation, combined with $75,000 from The Skoll Foundation, brings to $100,000 the total in prizes going to the causes that raise the most funds. Ja […]
We are thrilled to announce a very successful first week in the RaiseforWomen Challenge, with over $126,000 raised! We would like to thank everyone who has participated in the challenge so far. We have under five weeks left –– until June 6 –– to raise as much as possible! Half the Sky Movement will be giving out weekly prizes to individuals participating in […]
I remember reading Betty Harragan’s Games Mother Never Taught You when it first came out over thirty years ago. As a woman entrepreneur, that book had a huge impact on me — both in how to navigate at work, a new universe that felt like I had been dropped onto Mars, and how I saw myself as an agent of change. This was long before cell phones, the Internet, an […]
True or False? Overly severe discipline in school does not improve student behavior, but pushes them out of school and into the school-to-prison pipeline. How much did law enforcement pay a witness in an Alabama capital punishment case for less-than-truthful testimony? How many victims of human trafficking sued Signal International, LLC on Tuesday for forcin […]
This was cross posted to The Huffington Post. Projecting his latest music video onto the sides of 66 buildings around the world over the weekend, Kanye West debuted his new song, "New Slaves." He rapped: I know that we the new slaves... Meanwhile the DEA, teamed up with the CCA They tryina lock n---s up, they tryna make new slaves See that's t […]
I have zero tolerance for schools that punish students for exercising their First Amendment rights. Students like Wesley Teague, who joked about his school's athletic department and Kyron Birdine, who was suspended for mocking standardized tests, did nothing more than exercise their right to freedom of expression. Free speech is a right that students ne […]
Headline Title: African Union: Reject Kenya’s attempt to shield its leaders from accountability 24 May 2013 The African Union (AU) must throw out the resolution tabled by the Kenyan government calling for the International Criminal Court's (ICC) case to be referred for trial in Kenya, Amnesty International has urged. President Kenyatta and Vice-Preside […]
Headline Title: African Union: Reject Kenya’s attempt to shield its leaders from accountability 24 May 2013 The African Union (AU) must throw out the resolution tabled by the Kenyan government calling for the International Criminal Court's (ICC) case to be referred for trial in Kenya, Amnesty International has urged. President Kenyatta and Vice-Preside […]
Headline Title: Uganda: Activists arrested as disturbing crackdown on media continues 24 May 2013 The Ugandan authorities must end an attack on freedom of expression that has left several media outlets shut by security forces for a fifth day, Amnesty International said today after several activists were arrested for protesting against the crackdown.Armed po […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email American companies investing in Burma should not let new US government reporting requirements lull them into complacency on human rights concerns. The US “Reporting Requirements on Responsible Investment” in Burma went into effect on May 23, 2013. (New York) – American companies investing in Burma should not let new US govern […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email Human Rights Watch has over 100 staff tweeting human rights developments from around the world. Here are some of their most popular tweets from the last seven days. Most Popular on Twitter - Top Tweets of the Week Human Rights Watch has over 100 staff tweeting human rights developments from around the world. Here are some of […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email Serious electoral flaws and human rights abuses by the Iranian government undermine any meaningful prospect of free and fair elections on June 14, 2013. Dozens of political activists and journalists detained during the violent government crackdown that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election remain in prison, two for […]
Today not only marks the start of the Memorial Day weekend and with it the beginning of summer, it also marks seven days until the Illinois House of Representatives adjourns from Spring Session.
Yesterday, the President nominated Chai Feldblum to serve a second term as a commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Her first term ends in July.
Abortion-rights this week were bolstered by court rulings in Arizona and Arkansas. As for the military's treatment of women, the negative news went on, as a U.S. West Point military sergeant was accused of photographing and filming female cadets taking showers.
Global efforts to improve maternal health are ready for fine tuning when it comes to the Middle East and North Africa. This will be the aim of researchers gathering ahead of this month's global conference on women's health in Kuala Lumpur.
As the world's top performer on gender equality, Iceland needs to sustain its achievements and bridge remaining gaps on employment and gender based violence, a group of independent United Nations experts today urged as the country's newly formed Government took office.
The United Nations human rights office today said it was "concerned" about the legal rights of Guatemalans after a high court overturned the 80 year prison sentence against former military leader, Efrain Ríos Montt.
More than 260 million people across the world are still victims of human rights abuses due to caste-based discrimination, United Nations independent experts warned today, urging South Asian countries to strengthen legislation to protect them.
In this week’s address, President Obama commemorates Memorial Day by paying tribute to the men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3 read more
At a town hall meeting today on school safety at the Classical Magnet School in Hartford, I got to hear firsthand how Connecticut is leading the nation in adopting common-sense solutions to reduce gun violence and improve school safety. In the aftermath of the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School last December, the courage and resilience of teachers, […]
The Obama Administration has made improving the quality and efficiency of the health care system a priority. Already we have put in place new payment and care models that reward doctors and hospitals for providing high quality and efficient care to their patients. We are working with hospitals to identify gaps in patient safety and ways to reduce preventable […]
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy, and we want to take a moment to reflect on a recent White House Executive Order about open data. This Executive Order and accompanying Open Data Policy [PDF 6MB] requires that, going forward, all data generated by the federal government be made available in...
“Ahora el video de la Cascada de Tratamiento de VIH también está disponible en español” Recently we shared an animated video about the HIV treatment cascade in the United States that has quickly become one of the most-watched videos ever on the AIDS.gov YouTube channel . We’re pleased to share the Spanish language version of this...
Today marks one year since we released the Digital Government Strategy (PDF/ HTML5), as part of the President’s directive to build a 21st Century Government that delivers better services to the American people. The Strategy is built on the proposition that all Americans should be able to access information from their Government anywhere, anytime, and on any […]
