ARAB WORLD
Lebanon struggles to deal with Syrian refugees
The number of Syrian refugees, mostly women and children, is climbing. Lebanese and international organizations provide help, but they are reaching the limits of their capacities.
Every afternoon, the seven-year-old Ahmed comes to the Amel Foundation's social center in Harat Hreik, a district of southern Beirut, where he learns Arabic, math, and English. The Amel Foundation is a Lebanese NGO that runs health and education centers across the country, offering help to Syrian refugees.
Ahmed, a rather shy boy, comes from Amuda, a town in the east of Syria. He had to leave the country a few months ago, and ended up in the Lebanese capital.
Ahmed spends the day in a Lebanese state school. In most classes, his abilities are lower than those of his Lebanese peers. Like many Syrian students, he is new to foreign languages. Around 30 Syrian children between four and 12 attend lessons in the Amel Foundation center, where classes are financed by the United Nations' refugee agency, the UNHCR.
Editor flees Sri Lanka after fearing for her life
November 10, 2012
Ben Doherty
THE Sri Lankan newspaper editor told by a government official she would be killed - but who was denied protection in Australia - has fled Colombo for political asylum in another country.
Frederica Jansz was told by the Sri Lankan government's Secretary of Defence, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the President, that if they were at a function together ''I will tell people this is the editor of The Sunday Leaderand 90 per cent there will show that they hate you … they will kill you''.
Mr Rajapaksa has said he was harassed by the paper, and the language he used was in common use.
$38 million needed to help victims of Nigeria floods: UN
About $38 million dollars (30 million euros) are needed to help some two million people made homeless by deadly floods that have ravaged Nigeria, the UN humanitarian agency said Friday.
"The humanitarian community in Nigeria has presented a response plan for $38 million to respond to the humanitarian needs after the severe flooding in Nigeria in recent weeks," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.
Nigeria estimates that the now slowly receding floods have killed 363 people and affected another 7.7 million, of whom 2.1 million have been displaced from their homes.
"There is severe or very severe food insecurity in many places," Laerke said, adding there was also a "high risk of epidemics" because of a lack of access to clean water and adequate sanitation.
Remembering the lost children of El Salvador's war
The Salvadoran government recently apologized for its role in the forced disappearance of children during its 12-year war. Some say targeting children was a tactic to invoke terror on families.
By Summer Harlow, Contributor / November 9, 2012
After more than 25 years of imagining how her mother and five younger brothers were killed by the Army during El Salvador’s brutal civil war, María Angelica Escobar got used to the nightmares
But just over a year ago, the remains of Ms. Escobar’s mother and brothers were discovered in a mass grave in the community of San Cristóbal, in the hills surrounding the central Salvadoran town of Suchitoto. The exhumation began in September 2011, and slightly more than a year later, on Oct. 27, the remains of the victims were turned over to their families for burial.
“I feel happy and satisfied,” Escobar says. “I can rest now, knowing that they’re no longer abandoned.”
Five of the 18 victims in the grave – victims of a 1984 Army massacre in the community of San Cristóbal – were Escobar’s family members.
Power, corruption and the Communists
From the outside, the hold the Communist Party has on China looks as solid as a rock. It wields absolute power over China's 1.3 billion people.
But after six decades there are fears that the party is corroding from the inside, its ranks riddled with corruption.
On Friday, delegates from different provinces met in the Great Hall of the People, a day after their General Secretary Hu Jintao warned that corruption could lead to the fall of the party.
Mr Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have delivered similar warnings before, so some dismiss this as hollow talk. But there is a feeling that corruption is undermining the party's legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary people.
| Exiled Uyghurs call for China reforms |
As Communist Party Congress begins, members of the Muslim minority hope for better treatment from China's government.
Ted Regencia Last Modified: 09 Nov 2012 17:42
|
Just hours before her death sentence and execution, Rebiya Kadeer found herself shackled inside Liudaowan Prison in China's far-western Xinjiang region. If only to calm her nerves, she assured herself that her death was for her fellow Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in the world’s most populous country.
When asked for her last wish, Kadeer requested to see her children. It was denied. Her time was up. Then she was off to court to hear the verdict of her trial, on allegations that she stole state secrets. After almost six years in prison, Kadeer was released in March 2005, just a few months ahead of President Bush’s visit to China. Diplomatic pressure apparently helped persuade China to commute her death sentence.
In many ways, Kadeer's personal woes mirror the troubles confronting the 10 million Uyghurs, whom one activist called "the other Tibetans you never heard of". As China’s once in every decade leadership transition starts, Kadeer is calling on the country’s presumptive leader Xi Jinping to carry out political and economic reforms in the oil and mineral-rich Xinjiang region.
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