(New York) – Thai authorities should immediately investigate the killing of Somsak Onchuenjit, a lawyer and land rights activist, in Trang province in southern Thailand, Human Rights Watch said today. Successive Thai governments have failed to prevent or adequately respond to attacks against human rights defenders who represent landless farmers.

Information and communications technology (ICT) has been taken as a key driving force in transforming the traditional Nepali society into a knowledge-based society. Successive governments in Nepal have envisaged that the goal of prosperity will also be achieved through the optimum utilization of advanced technologies. 

The Congo Basin’s forests and peatlands are a major component of Earth’s life-support systems, and it is a key supplier of vital minerals needed to build a low carbon economy. The case for the people of the Congo to benefit from not exploiting these resources is irrefutable.

Few people, if asked to name the most strategic countries in the world, would place the Democratic Republic of Congo at the top of the list. But the natural resources of the DRC will be critical to the existential battle to save the planet.

Augur Investments through its chief operations officer Tatiana Aleshina has implicated President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the land dispute in which the City of Harare entered into agreement with the company.

In a sworn affidavit before the High Court in response to Harare North legislator Norman Markham, Savings Scheme and Jacob Pikicha High Court application (case number HC 425/21) seeking reversal of the agreement, Aleshina implicated the President, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and legal affairs Permanent Secretary Ms Virginia Mabhiza.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Feb 22 (Birbeo Bulletin/ANN): A government clerk was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment by the Intermediate Court on Saturday (Feb 20), for forging Department of Electrical Services’ (DES) documents.

Despite Haji Alias bin Haji Md Ali’s instant guilty pleas, Judge Pengiran Hajah Norismayanti binti Pengiran Haji Ismail noticed his lack of remorse and took a deterrent stance on deciding the sentence.

A total of 1,60,566 individuals and organisations have grabbed 2.57 lakh acres of forest land across the country. 

Of the total forest land, 1.38 lakh acres are reserved forest area -- grabbed by 88,215 persons and organisations. 

Forest Department submitted the statistics containing names of grabbers of forest land all over the country today at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of environment, forest and climate change. 

Today in the building of the Central Communications Service Olga Shiyan, Executive Director of Transparency Kazakhstan, presented the results of the study «Monitoring the state of corruption in Kazakhstan for 2020», implemented with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program in Kazakhstan.
Transparency Kazakhstan experts interviewed 9,000 respondents at the level of cities, regional and district centers and studied 1,347 applications received on the Open Dialogue portal.

• Experts have warned that a controversial deregulation act will serve as a springboard for greater corruption in Indonesia’s forestry sector.
• They say a pervasive lack of transparency will allow companies such as plantation operators to whitewash their illegal occupation of forests or take control of larger swaths of land than permitted, among other risks.
• The experts have called for greater transparency, especially on the beneficial ownership of companies, and more detailed guidelines on how to implement the deregulation law.

JA

Harare, Zimbabwe – Chengeto Tapfuma, 59, has become accustomed to pain and loss.

Three years ago, she lost her only daughter after a long illness and became the sole provider for her four grandchildren, who are now aged between eight and 13.

The oldest will start secondary school in Harare’s Budiriro suburb, close to where they live, next year.