Amnesty & Women's Reproductive Rights

Amnesty Canada is consulting members to determine whether we support or do not support taking a position or not on the area of SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS; if supporting it, what should AI's position look like.

These rights will be discussed at the national 2006 annual general meeting in Winnipeg near the end of May.

If you'd like to provide your opinion on whether Amnesty should include these rights in its mandate or not , please do so at the May 18th Amnesty International Prince George meeting (Books and Company at 5:00 on Thursday).

If you feel this topic is not of interest to you or that you think it is too controversial for Amnesty to deal with, please
still attend and respond.

These rights and the abuse of them is critical to the whole area of women's rights and violence against women especially in the following areas:

*preventable causes of maternal and child death

*girls and maternal death

*preventable causes of maternal illness

*sexual violence against women

*access to family planning and contraception

*child marriage

*sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

Ensure that your voice is heard on this important issue.

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada on Climate Change Science

April 18 2006
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A3

Dear Prime Minister:
As climate science leaders from the academic, public and private sectors across Canada, we wish to convey our views on the current state of knowledge of climate change and to call upon you to provide national leadership in addressing the issue. The scientific views we express are shared by the vast majority of the national and international climate science community.

We concur with the climate science assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001, which has also been supported by the Royal Society of Canada and the national academies of science of all G-8 countries, as well as those of China, India and Brazil. We endorse the conclusions of the IPCC assessment that “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities” and of the 2005 Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment that “Arctic temperatures have risen at almost twice the rate of those in the rest of the world over the past few decades”.

Climate variability and change is a global issue and the international IPCC process for assessment of climate science, with its rigorous scientific peer review processes, is the appropriate mechanism for assessing what is known and not known about climate science. Many Canadian climate scientists are participating in the preparation of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report which will be completed in 2007.

The following points emerge from the assessments and ongoing research by respected Canadian and international researchers:

• There is increasingly unambiguous evidence of changing climate in Canada and around the world.
• There will be increasing impacts of climate change on Canada’s natural ecosystems and on our socio-economic activities.
• Advances in climate science since the 2001 IPCC Assessment have provided more evidence supporting the need for action and development of a strategy for adaptation to projected changes.
• Canada needs a national climate change strategy with continued investments in research to track the rate and nature of changes, understand what is happening, to refine projections of changes induced by anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases and to analyse opportunities and threats presented by these changes.

We have supplied justification and more detail for each of these points in the accompanying documentation.

We urge you and your government to develop an effective national strategy to deal with the many important aspects of climate that will affect both Canada and the rest of the world in the near future. We believe that sound policy requires good scientific input. We would be pleased to provide a scientific briefing and further support, clarification and information at any time.

Yours sincerely:

Signed by 90 Canadian climate science leaders from the academic, public and private sectors across the country.

Seeds of Change

EARTH DAY

On April 22nd we will be celebrating Earth Day by the opening of an Art Show at Art Space above Books & Co. followed by a showing of the seventy minute documentary, “Seeds of Change”. This is a newly released film that concerns the controversy around genetically modified crops and documents the views of western Canadian farmers on both the benefits and risks associated with their use. This video provides an opportunity to hear both sides of the debate. The showing of this film follows on the recent successful screening of “Future of Food” in Prince George. You won’t want to miss this documentary. It is both enlightening and thought provoking. This is not a time to point fingers but an opportunity to come together with innovative ideas to improve our health and the life of the planet. The previous film showed to a full house, so come early, enjoy the art work at 7pm and be stimulated by the documentary at 8pm, April 22nd at Art Space on 3rd Ave. Admission is by donation.

Amnesty Films

The CNC Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee along with Amnesty International present:

Monday, April 10th at 6:45 PM at CNC room 1-306:

Bhopal: The Search for Justice
On December 2, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked poisonous methyl isocyanate gas, killing at least 15,000 men, women and children. Hundreds of thousands more were permanently maimed. Union Carbide is now owned by the Dow Chemical Corporation. Twenty years later, amid charges of corruption, graft and suppression of medical and environmental research about the tragedy, the victims are still not adequately compensated and cared for. Journalist Raajkumar Keswani, whose prediction of the Union Carbide disaster proved prophetic, documents the legacy and introduces us to the leading scientists, doctors and activists in his search for justice.

&


Between Midnight and the Rooster's Crow
In the aggressive search for the 'black gold' that drives Western economies, multinational corporations are working to extract billions of dollars of oil reserves from beneath Ecuador's rainforest. BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND THE ROOSTER'S CROW investigates the operations of the EnCana Corporation, a firm that, despite proud public declarations of its social responsibility, is shown to be answerable for widespread environmental contamination and human rights violations.

Monday, May 8th at 6:45 PM at CNC room 1-306:


The Devil's Miner
“The Devil's Miner” is the story of 14 year-old Basilio Vargas and his 12 year-old brother Bernardino, as they work in the Bolivian silver mines of Cerro Rico, which date back to the sixteenth century. Through the children's eyes, we encounter the world of devout Catholic miners who sever their ties with God upon entering the mountain. It is an ancient belief that the devil, as represented by hundreds of statues constructed in the tunnels, determines the fate of all who work within the mines.