Europe migrant crisis: Charity rejects EU funds over migrant policy
The medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says it will no longer take funds from the European Union in protest at its migration policy.
MSF singled out the EU's deal with Turkey in March to stem the biggest flow of migrants into the continent since World War II.
It says the deal, in which Turkey agreed to take back all migrants, jeopardises the concept of the refugee.
The charity received $63m (£44m) from the EU and its members last year.
China behaving like 'gangster' state with bookseller kidnap, say Hong Kong politicians
Calls for Beijing to behave in accordance with law after Lam Wing-kee reveals he was abducted by Chinese special forces
Pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong have accused Beijing of political thuggery after a local bookseller claimed he had been kidnapped by Chinese “special forces” as part of a coordinated bid to silence criticism of China’s Communist leadership.
Lam Wing-kee, one of five Hong Kong publishers to mysteriously disappear last year, made the explosive claims on Thursday night at a hastily arranged press conference in the former British colony.
Lam, the 61-year-old manager of the Causeway Bay bookstore, claimed he had spent months in solitary confinement in a cramped cell after being snatched by a group of men as he entered mainland China in October 2015.
Why our nuclear deal with Iran is turning to dust
Many of Europe’s largest banks won’t do business with Iran for fear of breaching other US sanctions, which have nothing to do with the nuclear agreement – but a lot to do with US agencies and prosecutors
The Middle East is littered with missed opportunities, lost chances and dreams turned to dust. The Iranian nuclear deal is now heading in the same direction. President Hassan Rohani, hero of the hour and Iran’s new Mr Good Guy in America, even obtained the support of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when he signed off on the agreement with six world powers last year to reduce the country’s nuclear activities in return for an end to Western sanctions. But he’s beginning to look like a patsy.
And all of the old Iranian revolutionaries, the sons of martyrs and the war veterans and the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the managers of its billion-dollar conglomerates are turning out to have been right all along. The sanctions have been lifted – but they haven’t been lifted. Western investments are not, despite all the promises, pouring into Iran because banks – especially European banks – are too frightened of breaching the rest of America’s sanctions laws to do business with the Islamic Republic. Washington both giveth and taketh away; it’s a slogan that every Iranian president should learn.
Tamil asylum seekers blocked from landing in Indonesia
On June 11, a small, dilapidated fishing boat was stranded off the shores of Aceh, Indonesia. On board were about 45 Tamil people who had crossed nearly 1,800 kilometres of ocean from Sri Lanka. Their goal was to seek asylum in Australia, which would require sailing another 3,800 kilometres. But their engine was broken and they were out of fuel.
The Tamil are an ethnic minority in Sri Lanka, and have faced decades of discrimination and violence from the Sri Lankan government, which culminated in the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009). Tens of thousands of Tamil refugees have fled the country.
The Indonesian government has not allowed the Tamil boat to land or the people to disembark in Aceh, citing a lack of travel documents. The government wants the Tamils to continue their journey to Australia as soon as possible, despite the fact that Australia has a very stringent immigration policy and has been criticised for holding asylum seekers indefinitely in detention centres.
Family 'kills seven months pregnant woman for honour' near Gujranwala
AFP
LAHORE: Relatives slit the throat of a young mother, who was pregnant with her second child after she married against their will, officials said Friday, the latest in a spate of so-called “honour killings”.
Muqaddas Bibi, a resident of Butranwali near Gujranwala, married Taufiq Ahmed three years ago in defiance of her family, who considered a marriage for love ─ rather than an arranged marriage ─ shameful, police investigator Mohammad Arshad told AFP.
Bibi's ties with her family were severed after the marriage, Arshad said, but her mother and brother allegedly approached her at a clinic where she was having a check-up on Thursday and convinced her to come home, saying they accepted her decision.
As food supplies dwindle in Venezuela, children feel a sharp pinch
SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS
Amid deepening economic crisis, Venezuelans are digging through trash, rioting, and looting in search of their next meal. More than 600 political and food-related protests took place nationwide in May.
CARACAS, VENEZUELA; AND MEXICO CITY — It’s 6 am on a Monday and 14-year-old Sayler Romero is getting ready for her day. But unlike most schooldays, she isn’t donning her uniform or packing books into her knapsack.
For the past nine months, the beginning of Sayler's week has been devoted to standing in Venezuela’s increasingly long – and desperate – grocery store lines.
“My mom doesn’t feel comfortable with this situation, either, but I do it so that my younger siblings aren’t lacking anything to eat,” says Sayler, who is the third of six children and who dreams of finding chicken at the store. She's tasked with the shopping as her working parents fear that an absence – even one day a week – could cost them their jobs, meaning an even more desperate situation for the family. Even now, it’s common for mom or one of the older siblings to skip a meal to ensure the youngest kids can eat, Sayler says.
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