“We cannot respond to refugee crises by closing doors and building fences,” said UN High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi in his opening address to a high-level event in Geneva.
By the end of the meeting, however, the international community remained reluctant to welcome refugees.
In Bangladesh, remittances from people living and working abroad added up to nearly Tk. 1.2 trillion last year—more than four times the nearly Tk. 250 billion that foreign aid agencies spent in the country.
Despite worldwide shock and indignation, it looks like little Aylan Kurdi's tragic death last summer changed little. This is a sad – but brutal – comment on our collective humanity, if such a thing still exists.
Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two remaining polio-endemic countries, have joined forces to eradicate poliomyelitis by vaccinating their children in synchronised campaigns.
Peter Wainaina’s focus is on the fresh Irish potatoes he has just harvested. He assembles them into a 90-kilogramme bag while sorting out the unmarketable ones like sliced and tiny tubes. He lives on a small plot of land in Njabini, 600 metres away from a farm in Aberdares forest, west central Kenya, where he has been growing this fast-maturing crop for the past three months.
For as long as I can remember, people have been talking about the possibility of revolution in Pakistan. They were originally inspired, or perhaps frightened, by the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when ordinary Iranians rose up under the leadership of the clergy and overthrew Western-backed Reza Shah Pahlavi.
It is wise of Angela Merkel not to have panicked in the wake of setbacks for her Christian Democrats (CDU) in Sunday`s three regional elections. The German chancellor acknowledged the blow, but discounted the likelihood of abrupt changes to her government`s policy on refugees.
“They have reduced the quantity of food they used to give us and we still do not know why. But we are managing. We are refugees and we have no choice. All they give us is rice and some soya beans” John Guige, a Nigerian resident and primary school teacher in the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon’s Far North region, told IPS.
The recent German elections went as predicted.. A new right wing, xenophobe party, Alternative for Germany, AFD, has emerged with force, and will bein national Parliament in 2017.This development is unprecedented in German politics since the end of the second world war, and it is widely viewedas part of a general trend - the rise of populist and xenophobe forces all over Europe.
The EUropean Union – a criminal?
The EU that has peace as its top goal and received Nobel’s Peace Prize?
The EU with Schengen and Dublin?
The persisting humanitarian crisis of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has been a global concern after two bouts of organised mass violence against them in 2012. While the Rohingya persecution has been going on for nearly four decades, Myanmar’s reforms launched in 2011 facilitated the international media’s coverage of the mass violence.
Besieged by US, UK, French, Russian and Syrian war crafts and ground intelligence, both in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Daesh from its original acronym in Arabic) has reportedly been searching for a new base in the North of Africa, specifically in Libya, in what has been called the “Colombian Triangle.”
Larry Summers, Clinton’s minister of treasury, has made few friends in life. At that time, he was instrumental in eliminating the Glass Stegall Banking Law, which since 1933 separated the bank’s customer deposits from the financial activities of the Stock Exchange, releasing a flood of money which created the present monster financial system.
When the leaders of 28 European states enjoy again this week their exclusive flights, luxurious suites and official limousines, to meet for a new summit in Brussels to adopt a final decision on their proposed plan of using refugees as bargaining chips, 20.000 Syrians will most probably be still starving in the Idomeni camp in Greece, in a situation that has been described as “worse than World War I.”
The last formal act of European disintegration was the last negotiation between 28 European leaders and the Prime Minister of Turkey. The deal, against all international treaties, is a total capitulation to European values. Europe will give Turkey 6 billion dollars, and in exchange Turkey will keep refugees from coming to Europe. Or better, will screen everybody, and send to Europe only the Syrians who are eligible for political asylum.
In the safety of his sister's bare flat in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, 42 year-old Iyad Yusef still shakes his head in disbelief when he recounts the journey that from war-torn Syria, brought him and his family to the relative safety of the blockaded strip.
In Argentina, there are now 20 brand names that guarantee that their garments are produced by workers in decent working conditions, thanks to the Clean Clothes network, aimed at eradicating slave labour in the garment industry, which illegally employs some 30,000 people in sweatshops around the country.
In a yet another violation of international laws and their own human values, 28 European countries have just agreed with Turkey to open a new “bazaar” of refugees, this time using the old barter system. i.e. Iraqis and Afghans in exchange of Syrians.
When the United Nations commemorated “Zero Discrimination Day” on March 1, there was an implicit commitment by the 193 member states to abhor all forms of discrimination – including against women, minorities, indigenous people, gays and lesbians and those suffering from AIDS.
“We are extremely jubilant over the rebuilding of our school that the Taliban destroyed it in 2013, due to which we used to sit without a roof,” Mujahida Bibi, a student of 8th grade in Government Girls Middle School North Waziristan Agency, told IPS.
Exclusion of Greece from the European free travel zone established by the Schengen Agreement is pending. The European Commission has ruled that the Athens government has “seriously neglected its obligations to control its own borders,” and if the deficiencies are not corrected within three months, the other member states of the Schengen area may exclude it from the agreement.
In 2015, some 850,000 people seeking asylum and work in northern European countries passed through Greece, and the influx is continuing.