18/07/2012
Geneva – The number of Syrian refugees that it has registered or assisted in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey has almost tripled since April to 112,000, mostly women and children, the UN refugee agency UNHCR) reports.
*Members of a Syrian family register as refugees in northern Lebanon. Photo: UNHCR/F.Juez
The actual number of Syrian refugees is thought to be significantly higher, as many people seek to be registered only when they run out of resource, it says.
“In all four countries, many newly arriving Syrian refugees are dependent on humanitarian aid, with some coming with only the clothes on their backs and following many months of unemployment,” UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists in Geneva on 17 July.
“The needs of those who arrived earlier in the year are also increasing as their savings have become depleted,” he noted.
At the same time, the communities supporting the refugees are increasingly feeling the strain, with the local infrastructure and resources under severe pressure, in particular water, housing, schools and health facilities.
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17/07/2012
By Laura Aumeer (Think Africa Press*) – In a downtown Cairo apartment, on a small grainy television screen, there is a screenshot of the crowds in Tahrir Square. Next to it, a shot of a rather smaller group of people chanting for Hosni Mubarak, which the state-run media would have the people believe, is simply a close-up of the larger crowd. Yet a brief walk away, reality beckons – Tahrir is filled with crowds demanding an end to Mubarak’s regime. There is also the army, the police, tear gas, US-made bullets and blood.
A screen-shot from ½ Revolution.
A snapshot of Egypt in 2011, this is but one scene from the documentary ½ Revolution which charts the experiences and concerns of its half-Egyptian directors Karim El-Hakim and Omar Shargawi, their families and friends during the tumultuous period.
The documentary features scenes in homes and the streets filmed on hand-held cameras up to seven days before Mubarak resigned.
The film thus shows half the revolution. But as El Hakim and Shargawi make clear, this symbolically also reflects the fact that the revolution today remains an unfinished story.
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17/07/2012
The annual turnover of transnational organized criminal activities such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting, illegal arms trade and the smuggling of immigrants is estimated at around $870 billion, the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
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Screenshot from UNODC’s global awareness-raising campaign emphasizing the size and cost of transnational organized crime.
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“Transnational organized crime reaches into every region, and every country across the world. Stopping this transnational threat represents one of the international community’s greatest global challenges,” said UNODC’s Executive Director, Yury Fedotov, in a news release.
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“Crucial to our success is our ability to raise public awareness and generate understanding among key decision and policymakers.”The $870 billion turnover from transnational organized crime is six times the amount of official development assistance, and is comparable to 1.5 per cent of the global domestic product, or seven per cent of the world’s exports of merchandise, according to UNODC.
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Drug trafficking is the most lucrative form of business for criminals, with an estimated value of $320 billion a year. Human trafficking brings in about $32 billion annually, while some estimates place the global value of smuggling of migrants at $7 billion per year, according to a UN news release on 16 June.
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15/07/2012
An estimated 880,000 people are in forced labour in the in the European Union member states, which statistically equals 1.8 persons per 1,000 inhabitants, says a new report.
An unemployed youth. Photo: ILO
The International Labour Organization (ILO) report adds that:
- Out of the 880,000 forced labourers, 30% are estimated to be victims of forced sexual exploitation and 70% of forced labour exploitation.
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- Women constitute the clear majority of victims (58%).
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- EU citizens were involved in the majority of cases of forced labour exploitation reported in EU Member states. Other victims came from Asia, Africa and Central and South-Eastern Europe.
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- Victims of forced sexual exploitation came primarily from the EU, Central and South-Eastern Europe, Africa, and to a lesser extent Latin America and Asia.
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- Adults and children can also be forced into illicit or informal economic activities, including begging.
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- Central & South Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States is the region with the highest prevalence of forced labour per 1,000 inhabitants globally (4.2/1,000 inhabitants). 13 out of 19 countries of this region are at the EU’s doorstep.
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14/07/2012
By Sven Heymann (WSWS*) – Since the global financial crash in 2008, the worldwide illegal organ trade has increased dramatically. Until recently, those looking to sell parts of their bodies generally came from the so-called developing countries; now, the phenomenon can be found in large parts of Europe.
Anatomical study by Leonardo da Vinci | Wikimedia Commons.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2010 there were approximately 107,000 donated organs worldwide— both legal and illegal. Kidneys made up about two thirds of all transplanted organs.
According to a report inthe Guardian, WHO doctor Luc Noel expects that about 10 percent of all transplants are performed illegally. On the other hand, the California human rights organisation Organ Watch talks of 15,000-20,000 illegal kidney transplants per year.
But the transplants carried out represent only a fraction of the actual need. Only one in ten requests are currently realised, according to the Guardian report. The profits that can be achieved are huge, says Noel.
Gangs of organ traffickers conduct a million-dollar business in the illegal trade. Media reports consistently speak of up to US$200,000 dollars (€160,000) being demanded for a single organ on the black market.
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14/07/2012
Johannesburg, (IRIN*) – For a couple of hundred dollars or less an arms dealer can illegally source a blank end user certificate with the required signatures and stamps – needed to transfer weapons across international borders – and “if no one checks its authenticity (often the case) he can ship his wares to the world’s hotspots with minimal risk, for maximum profit,” a report by the Small Arms Survey (SAS) said in 2008.
**Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN. There are an estimated 875 million small arms in circulation
Since then “not much has changed” Glenn McDonald, based in Geneva and author of a chapter in the SAS 2008 yearbook entitled Who’s Buying? End-user Certification, told IRIN.
Arms spending has not broken step following global slowdowns and economic recession: In 2011 US$1.7 trillion was spent on the world’s military, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
There is no internationally binding agreement on the trade in conventional weapons, which according to civil society organizations results in fewer bureaucratic burdens on legal conventional weapons’ exports and imports than on such commodities as bananas, bottled water and MP3 players.
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14/07/2012
Thousands of peoples from Haiti and other Caribbean countries have been risking their lives trying to escape by sea from difficult living situations in their homelands, the UN warns.
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*Northwest coast of Haiti. UN Photo: Logan Abassi
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“Continuing difficulties in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake are leading thousands of Haitians to flee their homeland each year, often in unseaworthy vessels,” said Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Although no firm statistics exist, it is estimated that hundreds of deaths occur yearly as a result.”
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13/07/2012
Athens – The Greek authorities are failing to tackle a rising wave of xenophobic violence that has left migrants afraid to walk the streets, says a Human Rights Watch report.
*Greece: Hate On The Streets | Human Rights Watch
The 99-page report ,“Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic Violence in Greece,” documents the failure of the police and the judiciary to prevent and punish rising attacks on migrants.
Despite clear patterns to the violence and evidence that it is increasing, the police have failed to respond effectively to protect victims and hold perpetrators to account, Human Rights Watch found.
Authorities have yet to develop a preventive policing strategy, while victims are discouraged from filing official complaints. No one has been convicted under Greece’s 2008 hate crime statute.
“People coming from war zones are scared to go out at night in Athens for fear of being attacked,” said Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch.
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12/07/2012
By Uri Avnery* (TRANSCEND) – For me, there was no surprise. From the very first day, I was convinced that Yasser Arafat had been poisoned by Ariel Sharon. I even wrote about it several times. It was a simple logical conclusion.
**Arafat speaking at the WEF in 2001 | Photo by Remy Steinegger
First, a thorough medical examination in the French military hospital where he died did not find any cause for his sudden collapse and death.
No traces of any life-threatening disease were found.
The rumors distributed by the Israeli propaganda machine that Arafat had AIDS were blatant lies.
They were a continuation of the rumors spread by the same machine that he was gay – all part of the relentless demonization of the Palestinian leader, which went on daily for decades.
When there is no obvious cause of death, there must be a less obvious one.
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11/07/2012
The current weak economic recovery will keep unemployment rates in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries high until at least the end of 2013, according to a new OECD report.
Image: UN/ILO
The Employment Outlook 2012 says that the OECD-wide joblessness rate is forecast to remain high at 7.7% in the fourth quarter of 2013, close to the 7.9% rate in May 2012. This leaves around 48 million people out of work across the OECD.
In the Euro area, unemployment rose further in May to an all-time peak of 11.1%.
Moreover, job creation during the weak recovery of the past two years has often been concentrated in temporary contracts because many firms are reluctant to hire workers on open-ended contracts in today’s uncertain economic environment, says the report.
To get employment rates back to pre-crisis levels, about 14 million jobs need to be created in the OECD area. Young people and the low-skilled continue to bear the brunt of the jobs crisis.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 