Under intense global pressure, the US dropped its demand that a new UN declaration on women's equality make clear that there is no international right to abortion.
But Washington is still insisting that the document must not "create any new international human rights" -- which opponents say could also mean abortion. At a closed-door meeting on Thursday, US Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey announced that the US was dropping part of its proposed amendment relating to abortion and leaving the part on international human rights on the table.
But delegates from the EU, the African Union, the Mercosur trading bloc in South America and other countries strongly opposed any amendment to the one-page declaration which reaffirms the landmark platform adopted at the 1995 UN women's conference in Beijing to achieve equality of the sexes.
Nilcea Freire, Brazil's minister of state for women's affairs, said not a single country supported the revised US amendment, and every speaker insisted that the declaration be left untouched and simply reaffirm the language of Beijing, "nothing more."
The wording of the declaration has taken the spotlight at the two-week high-level review of the Beijing platform, angering many of the 130 governments and 6,000 representatives of women's and human rights organizations. They had been hoping to focus on the obstacles to women's equality in the economy, the family, education and political life -- not on the abortion issue.
Hoping to avoid controversy, the Commission on the Status of Women, which organized the meeting, had drafted a one-page declaration that would have nations reaffirm the Beijing platform and pledge to accelerate its implementation.
But Sauerbrey said the major US concern has been to establish a principle that the Beijing platform "is not a legally binding document, that issues such as abortion are issues of national consensus, national policy."
After Thursday's debate, she said she was going to report the reaction of delegates to Washington and await instructions.
"Whatever happens in the next day or two, I think one of the things that has been very clearly established that should give a lot of comfort to concerned Americans is that virtually every country said we interpret it the same as you -- we interpret that these are issues of national sovereignty," Sauerbrey said.
Asked about the US failure to get support from a single country, Sauerbrey said, "there's just an awful lot of peer pressure and when you have groups taking group positions" countries that indicated they would support the US position were too "intimidated" to stand up.
June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, said dropping the reference to abortion was "a good first step" and the US should now withdraw the entire amendment. "and join the women of the world and the global consensus to unequivocally reaffirm the Beijing platform."
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS