Members of the International Advisory Committee of the International Coalition To End Transplant Abuse In China (ETAC) wrote to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) to express concern that the Vatican conference “Modern Slavery, Human Trafficking, and Access to Justice for the Poor and Vulnerable” held from March 12-13 included among its attendees and speakers Dr. Wang Haibo, the head of the China Organ Transplant Response System (COTRS).
Read the letter below to understand why this is concerning.

ETAC_Letter-re-Vatican-Conference-2018

Best wishes to all women – let’s celebrate your success and achievements! Particular wishes to my wife, daughter, daughters-in-law, grand-daughters and all women friends and co-workers.

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. This Day also provides us an opportunity to reflect on and recognise the important and ongoing work still needed in progressing gender equality both locally and globally.

This International Women’s day we are encouraged to #PressforProgress by motivating and uniting friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive. It is important to acknowledge success and promote a culture which values the importance of equity and inclusion and recognises the role women and gender diverse individuals play in the continued growth and development of the world.

International Women’s Day URL – http://www.internationalwomensday.com.au/

I warmly welcome the signing of a maritime boundaries treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste on 6 March 2018 In New York. The Treaty Between the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and Australia Establishing their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea was signed at the United Nations Headquarters in the presence of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres.

A significant event, the signing of this new maritime boundaries treaty marks the successful conclusion of the first-ever recourse by States to conciliation proceedings under Annex V to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Comprehensive Package Agreement of 30 August 2017, which includes the new Treaty, puts an end to a decade-long maritime dispute between Timor-Leste and Australia. “By delimiting the maritime boundary between the two States in the Timor Sea, and by establishing a special regime for the area comprising the Greater Sunrise gas field, this Agreement puts these States in a better position to exercise their respective rights and obligations under UNCLOS in an effective manner” said the Secretary-General in his remarks at the signing ceremony.

The Treaty, he noted, “is a further contribution to establishing legal certainty in the world’s oceans, an essential condition for stable relations, peace and security, and the achievement of sustainable development.”

In my blog post dated 3rd December 2013 I incorrectly used inverted commas in the title. My intention was to provide emphasis but I accept that the use of quotation marks around the word “guilty” may have indicated to readers that this was a direct quote from Dr Jakubowicz’s work. I accept that Dr Jakubowicz never wrote or said those words.

In fact, Dr Jakubowicz has acknowledged that, “One often-unrecognised tragedy of the Holocaust was that three million Catholic Poles died …. along with the three million Polish Jews at the hands of the Nazis ( https://andrewjakubowicz.com/publications/notes-for-a-grave-under-snow/)”

Dr Jakubowicz feels that my post has,
“significantly misrepresented my position, invented a phrase that I have never used, nor would use, and construed me as an enemy of the Polish nation. In my research on relations between Polish citizens of Christian and Jewish faiths, all of which has been academically refereed, I have been an assiduous supporter of reconciliation between Polish Christians and Polish Jews. In research published in recent months I have revealed more information about the role of the Polish government in exile in doing its utmost to support those of its Jewish citizens it was able to aid.”

I accept that my original post caused Dr Jakubowicz distress and retract it fully. The blog of 3rd December 2013 has been removed.