UNESCO has 195 Member countries.
UNESCO tries to achieve what it wants to do through six programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information. Some projects sponsored by UNESCO are literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes. UNESCO also decides what will become World Heritage Sites. A World Heritage Site is an important, special, interesting or beautiful place. If a place is a World Heritage Site, the place can not be destroyed, as it can give useful information for the future. The Uluru, for example, gives a lot of information on the culture of Aborigines. UNESCO is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. and works for Millennium Development Goals.
Human rights
Human rights are rights and freedoms that all people should have.
Today, the ideas of human rights are protected as legal rights in national and international law.
They are seen as "universal," which means they are meant for everyone, no matter what their race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, age, sex, political beliefs (or any other kind of beliefs), intelligence, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity are.
Every person has all of these rights, it is not possible to only grant some of them:
The idea of human rights originated from ideas found in religion and philosophy in Western Europe. The modern Western idea of human rights started in the European Enlightenment. In the 16th century, some people started suggesting that everyone had the religious and political right to choose their religion and their leaders. This sort of thinking was important in the English Civil War. After the war, the philosopher John Locke argued that people should have a certain set of human rights. These ideas were also important in the American revolution and the French revolution in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill was an important philosopher who also thought about human rights. He said that people should be able to control their own bodies and minds. He talked about three special ideas:
Hegel was a philosopher who wrote about the idea of free will. He believed that in order to have freedom, a person should be able to:
Because people believe that human rights are important, countries make laws to protect them. These laws say that governments cannot take away people's basic rights. They make sure people who take away other people's rights are punished. However, many countries in the world do not protect the human rights of their people.
Some major political groups and countries have made statements that promote human rights. Many governments and international groups punish human rights violators by refusing to trade with them, or even helping groups that want to overthrow their governments.
Some of the important places that human rights laws are written is in constitutions. The United States Constitution and Constitution of France are two of the oldest set of laws based on human rights.
In 1948 the United Nations made the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is a widely respected document that lists what the United Nations believes are human rights. It is not a law, but two important agreements have been written based on its ideas:
These are United Nations human rights "Covenants": agreements between people or countries. The countries who sign these two covenants agree to follow them.
In addition to those Declaration and Covenants, there are many treaties and documents made by United Nations and other international organizations. Those treaties and documents are called "International human rights law".
Not everyone agrees on what the basic human rights are. It is very clear that few countries permit all these rights. Also, there are countries in which the rights are not illegal, but nothing is done to promote them. Here is a list of some of the most recognized rights:
Human rights abuses are when a person is hurt in a way that violates (goes against) his/her human rights. Human rights abuses are also often called "human rights violations".
Many people, groups, and countries think protecting human rights is very important. But not everyone in the world believes in human rights. If people who do not believe in human rights have political power they can hurt many people. Even if these people have no political power, they can be violent to other people. There are many people who work to protect everyone's human rights; some of these are government groups, and some are not with any government. They are sometimes called "human rights organizations". Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are examples of human rights organizations.
In the UK, every Act of Parliament must comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. Nonetheless, a person can challenge an Act if it violates the Convention. However, the Government are not bound to change the law due to incompatibility, and they have the power to pass a law that contravenes with the Human Rights, if they wish.
Nationality
The nationality of a person is that person's legal relationship with a state, for example a Swedish person's legal relationship with the kingdom of Sweden. Nationality is not identical to citizenship but in the majority of states most of the population are both citizens and nationals. Dual nationality means that the person has a legal relationship with two different states at the same time, for example with the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The rights and duties of individual people and the states they belong to vary from country to country.
"Nationality" can take on different meanings depending on the country, language and culture in question. For example, someone of Italian descent may be called "Italian" even if the individual, a member of the Italian diaspora, has no right to an Italian passport and citizenship. In past centuries, the usual meaning of "nationality" was not political, but rather meant membership in an ethnic group. In modern cases such as in airports, when officials ask your "nationality," they are asking to see the passport you use for travel to foreign countries.
Race
Race has many meanings in English. It can mean:
Medical ethics
Medical ethics is the set of ethical rules that doctors follow. These ideas tell doctors how they should treat patients.
The earliest set of ethical ideas in medicine was the "Hippocratic oath". (An oath is a special promise.) It was supposed to be written by Hippocrates but probably was not written by him.
There are 6 major principles (important ideas):
Here are some kinds of medical ethics questions:
Sperm
Sperm are the male reproductive cells. Most animals and plants use sperm to reproduce. They have different ways of making and releasing the sperm. In all cases the sperm meets with the egg of the female and grow into a new organism.
The name sperm is taken from the Greek word "sperma" meaning "seed".
An animal sperm cell is capable of movement, as it has to get to the uterus to meet with the ovum. Animal sperm cells (including humans) have small 'head' and a long tail called a "flagellum". The flagellum acts like a motor to propel the sperm cell through the female reproductive system.
Human sperm is made in the testicles of a man. Human sperm contains 23 chromosomes. A human needs 46 chromosomes, so a sperm cell is called a "haploid" as it only has half. The other half is contained within the ovum or egg of a female. During sex, semen is shot out of the man's penis during ejaculation.
Semen carries the sperm into the woman's vagina and down to the ovum in the uterus. During ejaculation millions of sperm cells are released, but only one hundred or so reach the egg.
The egg can merge with one sperm cell that reaches it. Because it now has 46 chromosomes, it is called a "diploid", like ordinary cells of the body. This diploid is called a zygote, and it can grow into a fetus and eventually a baby.