28/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), who is preparing a report for the Assembly on “the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives”, yesterday attended a Moscow court hearing of jailed executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Pichugin. During her two-day visit, Mrs Leutheusser – a former German Justice Minister – also intends to meet prosecutors, Yukos executives, lawyers involved in the case and human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin. Her draft report is due to be made public possibly in mid-November.
28/09/2004 | President
PACE President Peter Schieder today expressed profound relief at the liberation of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, two Italian female aid workers held hostage in Iraq for three weeks. At the same time, he repeated his call for the unconditional release of all the other hostages in Iraq.
27/09/2004 | News
An urgent debate on the challenge of terrorism in Council of Europe member states as well as a joint debate on the political, human rights and humanitarian situation in the Chechen Republic are among highlights of the PACE session, which takes place in Strasbourg from 4 to 8 October 2004. Other items due for debate include the functioning of democratic institutions in Serbia and Montenegro and in Azerbaijan, the honouring of obligations and commitments by Armenia, as well as women’s participation in elections. Guest speakers include Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Crown Prince Albert of Monaco – who is due to address the parliamentarians just before the ceremony for Monaco’s accession – and the President of the new Pan-African Parliament Gertrude Mongella.
23/09/2004 | President
"My home country, Austria, has eight million inhabitants. Today, in Africa alone, there are fourteen million children orphaned by AIDS. I am saying these numbers aloud, because they help me to put this tragedy into a proper perspective," PACE President told participants at the African-European parliamentary consultation on children orphaned by AIDS in Africa, organised in Cape Town on 23 September. "For my part, I intend to make an initiative for a report by the Assembly in form of a critical analysis of wider Europe’s contribution, so far, to the efforts to alleviate the humanitarian, social and economic consequences caused by the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I will also call for a set of clear and concrete recommendations on how Europe should proceed in the future, in order to make its help more focused and efficient. Finally, I will personally make sure that the question of help for Africa’s children orphaned by AIDS is put on the agenda of my parliament in Vienna," he concluded.
22/09/2004 | Elections
A five-member, cross-party PACE delegation will make a “pre-election” visit to Ukraine to assess the situation in the country ahead of the 31 October presidential election. The delegation is due to meet the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament and the Chairmen of the Central Election Commission, Supreme and Constitutional Courts as well as the Foreign and Interior Ministers, NGOs, the media and other international observers. Members of the “pre-election” delegation will give a press conference at 12 noon on Wednesday 29 September (Room 12 of the Verkhovna Rada, Hrushevskoho Street, 18/2, Kyiv).
21/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Local authorities from the countries around the Adriatic basin could work together for the sustainable development of their common sea using Council of Europe expertise and EU finance, according to the head of the Italian delegation to PACE Claudio Azzolini. He was speaking at a colloquy held at Chioggia in the Venice Lagoon, attended by representatives from Albania, Croatia, Italy, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovenia.
21/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, together with the Sub-Committee on Population of its Migration Committee, are jointly organising in Bratislava on 23-24 September a parliamentary seminar to prepare the European Population Conference 2005. This conference, co-hosted by the Assembly in Strasbourg from 7-8 April 2005, will provide a forum for dialogue between demographers and policy-makers Europe-wide on the theme “Demographic challenges for social cohesion”. This preparatory seminar, which focuses on the problems of central and eastern Europe, will discuss in turn changing family formations, ageing, the impact of migration and vulnerable population groups.
20/09/2004 | President
PACE President Peter Schieder will take part in an “African-European parliamentary consultation on children orphaned by AIDS in Africa” (22-24 September, Cape Town) alongside South African President Thabo Mbeki, Pan-African Parliament President Gertrude Mongella (who is also due to address the Assembly during its October session in Strasbourg) and former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson. Mr Schieder will also be representing the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre. The consultation, organised by the North-South Centre, AWEPA “European Parliamentarians for Africa” and the Dutch presidency of the EU, will focus on the reality for AIDS orphans and vulnerable children, practical action and parliamentary monitoring, as well as re-prioritising the international agenda.
20/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee will hold in Bratislava on 22 September an exchange of views on a memorandum on Assistance to ill persons at the end of life by Dick Marty (Switzerland, LDR). Following a plenary debate in April 2004 on Mr Marty’s earlier report on Euthanasia, the Assembly voted to refer it back to the committee, recommending “a new text which brings together the widely diverging approaches expressed during the debate”. The committee will also discuss two petitions, one on Dutch-speakers’ and the other on French-speakers’ right to medical care in Brussels and surrounding regions. The committee will also be informed by Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, LDR) of his recent visit to Bulgaria to follow up his report on Improving the lot of abandoned children in institutions.
20/09/2004 | Elections
The 19 September parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan fell short of OSCE and Council of Europe standards in many respects. Of particular concern were the failure to fully implement improved election legislation and the manner in which electronic voting was introduced, which did not contribute to the confidence of the electorate in the election process, concludes the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) in a statement, issued today. Over 300 international observers from 33 countries monitored the voting and counting on behalf of the OSCE and Council of Europe.
17/09/2004 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE’s Political Affairs Committee has proposed the creation of a Round Table for politicians from Chechnya and Russia as a whole to help increase democratic stability in the republic. Speaking at press conference in Paris on 14 September, rapporteur Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) said that the new body should involve only those who “renounce violence”. The report, approved by the committee the same day, described the Beslan hostage-taking as “a gross crime against humanity” but appealed to all authorities involved not to react to the provocation in kind. The report is due to be debated by the Assembly - together with others on the human rights and humanitarian situations in Chechnya - on Thursday 7 October in Strasbourg.
16/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic remains catastrophic," Rudolf Bindig (Germany, SOC) concludes in his report, due to be debated at the Assembly’s October session (4-8 October, Strasbourg). Supporting Mr Bindig’s report at its meeting today in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) unequivocally condemned recent terrorist attacks and killings by illegal armed formations.