Six In The Morning Sunday February 23

'No one cares': The tragic truth of Syria's 500,000 refugee children

At least a million Syrian refugees are now living in Lebanon, almost half of them children. They are being put up in tents, shacks and nine to a room – but 'no one cares', says British photographer Ed Thompson, who spent six days moving among the camps

SARAH MORRISON 

 

 

Sunday 23 February 2014

When the British photojournalist Ed Thompson arrived at a snowy Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon last December, he was greeted by a little boy who ran circles around him, making motorbike sounds. Thompson joined in and the subject of his new project was born.

We do not know the name of the boy, or his story. That is partly because Thompson did not make the trip to Lebanon with an NGO or the UN. His visit was instigated by a chance encounter with Sammy Hamze, a 20-year-old Lebanese art student studying in London. They got talking in the pub about the number of Syrians living in Hamze's hometown and, within weeks, were in Lebanon, cameras and notepads in hand.

They spent six days in Chhim, western Lebanon, interviewing refugees in camps, those taken in by Lebanese families and those forced to pay steep rent for squalid properties. Keen to break through the political soundbites – lamenting Syria as the "greatest humanitarian tragedy of our times" – Thompson wanted to personalise the crisis and draw attention to two startling statistics: that of the nearly one million (official) Syrian refugees displaced in Lebanon, almost half are children; and around one in five, according to Unicef, are less than five years old.

The French Intifada: how the Arab banlieues are fighting the French state

The secular republican world of France, the Muslim world of North Africa: how the bitter history of France's relationship with its ex-colonies is played out in the French capital is the subject of a fascinating new book, extracted below

• Andrew Hussey
• The Observer, Sunday 23 February 2014

In the late afternoon of 27 March 2007, I was travelling on the Paris metro, heading home after a day's work in the east end of the city. I got off at the Gare du Nord to change trains. In a trance – lost in the music on my headphones – I automatically made for the shopping mall which connects the upper and lower levels of the station. This was where I would normally buy a newspaper and a coffee and then catch a train south to my flat.

But this was no ordinary evening. As I walked up the exit stairs I could smell smoke and hear shouting. The corridors were a tighter squeeze than usual and everyone a little more nervous and bad-tempered than the average rush-hour crowd. As I got nearer the main piazza of the mall, smoke stung my eyes and nostrils, and the shouting grew louder. I could see armed police and dogs. Still, there didn't seem to be too much to worry about. My only real fear was how to get through the tide of commuters, which by now had come to a dead halt, and on to my train home.

Uganda MPs falsified gay report

22 FEB 2014 13:27 SHAUN DE WAAL

The ministerial team tasked with advising President Yoweri Museveni on homosexuality falsified and twisted information in an expert scientific report.

Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show that the Ugandan ministerial task team asked by the president to advise him on homosexuality falsified the information contained in the report given by medical and psychological experts, twisting it to show that homosexuality should indeed be further criminalised.

The law, which Uganda's Parliament passed in December 2013, proposes severe penalties for same-sex romantic and sexual behaviour.

• Read: Minutes of the first task force meeting on the homosexuality debate
• Read: Minutes of the second task force meeting on the homosexuality debate
• Read: National Resistance Movement Caucus report
• Read: Uganda scientist consensus statement on homosexuality

Under international pressure, President Yoweri Museveni delayed signing the controversial Bill into law, asking for a panel of experts to be convened to advise on whether homosexuality was "learned" behaviour or an inborn condition.

The experts – including academics from Marekere University and officials in the Ugandan ministry of health – said that, in their view and in terms of the best current medical knowledge, "homosexuality has no clear-cut cause", though they adduce some limited genetic evidence, and that "several factors are involved which differ from individual to individual. It is not a disease that has a treatment."

Japan drafts revision of arms exports ban: source

By Nobuhiro Kubo

 Japan has drafted new guidelines that would reverse a decades-old ban on weapons exports, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday, a move that could further strain ties with neighbors China and South Korea.

Tokyo has been reviewing the self-imposed export ban under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new security strategy, aimed at bolstering the self-reliance of the military.

Serving as prime minister for a rare second time and enjoying solid public approval, Abe says Japan needs a stronger military to cope with what he calls an increasingly threatening security environment, with a more militarily assertive China and unpredictable North Korea.

The proposed revision could draw criticism from China and South Korea, where resentment over Japan's wartime aggression still runs deep. Beijing and Seoul also have long-running territorial disputes with Tokyo over different sets of islets.

Venezuelans protest en masse in rival rallies

 

By Jordi Miro2 hours ago

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas in marches for and against President Nicolas Maduro's government Saturday, as the nation's massive divide became ever more visible.

The protests -- which began on February 4 -- are seen as the biggest test yet to socialist leader Maduro since he succeeded late leftist icon Hugo Chavez last year, with the country's economic problems at the heart of often bloody scenes that have left 10 people dead and scores injured.

Saturday's competing mass rallies in the capital laid bare a chasm between those who support Maduro and those who oppose him, in an oil-rich country that despite having the world's largest proven reserves is grappling with basic goods shortages, rampant inflation and violent crime.

Just 24 hours after Maduro made a rare offer to US President Barack Obama of talks to end more than a decade of enmity, there appeared no prospect of rapprochement after Secretary of State John Kerry hit out at the Venezuelan government's handling of the protests.

23 February 2014 Last updated at 00:37

The special effects firms transforming the film industry

By Al MoloneyTechnology reporter, BBC Click

If you are looking for a sure thing at this year's Oscars look no further than Gravity to win the best visual effects category. Despite containing the combined star power of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, the real standout of the film has been the work of London-based special effects company Framestore.

Under the guidance of VFX supervisor Tim Webber, the company worked closely with director Alfonso Cuaron to bring the tale of two stranded astronauts to the screen. Originally conceived as a small, intimate film with practical effects, Webber believed that the difficulty of representing gravity in space, or the relative lack of it, could best be overcome through digital technology.