Albania
Albania is bracing itself for the risk that turmoil in Greece, its southern neighbour, will force tens of thousands of migrant Albanian workers to return home, cutting off remittances to hard-pressed families in one of post-communist eastern Europe’s poorest states. Government ministers in Tirana express confidence that Albania’s financial system can ride out the storm, even though three banks in Albania are Greek-owned and control almost 16 per cent of all assets in the Albanian banking sector. The concerns about the possible return of migrants underline that Albania and other Balkan states, rather than Greece’s Eurozone partners, could be the first to feel the economic and social ripple effects of the crisis in Athens. About 12 per cent of Albania’s 3.2m people live below the World Bank-defined poverty line of $2 a day. Albanian migrant workers have been going to Greece since the early 1990s.
USA: State allows 15-year-olds sex-change without parental notification
A report has claimed that residents in Oregon are only now finding out that the state
allows teenagers as young as 15 to get state-subsidised sex-change operations without
parental notification. ‘It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our
children,’ Lori Porter of Parents' Rights in Education told Fox News on Thursday.
‘They're our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done
without the knowledge of a parent or guardian, it's mind-boggling .’ The executive
director of the Trans-Active Gender Centre in Portland, said the Fox News report is
‘irrational’ and the policy does not mean that 15-year-olds can simply walk into a
doctor's office and get sex-change surgery. The facts are: The age of consent has been
15 since 1971. Youth in Oregon can access all healthcare at the age of 15. For sex-change
operations they do not have to be older than 15.
Iraq: Human rights organisation appeals for Christian protection
Between 21 June and 1 July, four Christians were abducted in Baghdad. One was released
following police intervention. Ransoms were paid for the others’ release. However, two
were murdered even though ransoms had been paid and one was released. Imad Youkhana, an
Iraqi Christian member of parliament, issued a statement decrying this violence and urged
Iraqi authorities to provide greater protection for Iraq's Christians. He said the
violence is part of an intimidation campaign to force Christians to emigrate and
undermines the unity of Iraqi society. An Iraqi NGO, the Hammurabi Human Rights
Organisation , today (13 July) issued a similar appeal for the protection of Christians
in Iraq.
China: Police, politics and human rights
There was widespread detention of human rights lawyers last weekend after more than 100
lawyers across the mainland issued a joint statement protesting against the disappearance
of crusading lawyer Wang Yu. Mainland police detained lawyers and law firm staff and
searched some of their homes and offices. Three human rights groups say that other people
have disappeared. Across 15 cities 57 people were taken away, summoned or detained by
police. One of them, Guangzhou-based lawyer Sui Muqing, was placed under ‘residential
surveillance at a designated location’ - a form of detention - for alleged ‘incitement to
subvert state power’ according to a police document given to his family. Some have since
been released but were warned by police to refrain from publicly voicing their support
for Wang Yu. Since lawyers started openly identifying with human rights causes and
coordinating their advocacy campaigns, they have become the closest thing China has to a
political opposition.
