28/02/2015
By Tom Westcott (1)
TRIPOLI, 27 February 2015 (IRIN)* – The roundabouts in the Libyan capital of Tripoli have long been a place for Egyptians to find work. Every day, carpenters, builders, plumbers and decorators sit and wait, each man carrying the tools of his trade to make it easier for prospective employers.
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**Photo: Mohamed Ben Khalifa/IRIN | Egyptian workers held in a detention centre for illegal immigrants near Misrata on board a bus to Tunisia, from where they will be flown home.
Nowadays there are no Egyptians. Last week the Islamic State (IS) in Libya released a video showing the beheading of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian. Since then, over 25,000 Egyptians have returned, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while hundreds of detained irregular migrants have been released from jail.
Egyptians have reported an uptick in attacks – at one roundabout, a Libyan man was shot dead for trying to prevent a group of men harassing Egyptian workers. But for some, the prospect of returning to a life in poverty in their home country makes staying on in Libya’s war-zone a risk they are willing to take.
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Posted in Africa, Middle East, The Peoples, War Lords |
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28/02/2015
By Pepe Escobar*
27 February 2015 (RT)* – Winston Churchill once said, “I feel lonely without a war.” He also badly missed the loss of empire. Churchill’s successor – the ‘Empire of Chaos’ – now faces the same quandary. Some wars – as in Ukraine, by proxy – are not going so well.
**BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) | Author: Cflm001 (talk) | Wikimedia Commons
And the loss of empire increasingly manifests itself in myriad moves by selected players aiming towards a multipolar world.
So no wonder US ‘Think Tankland’ is going bonkers, releasing wacky CIA-tinted “forecasts” where Russia is bound to disintegrate, and China is turning into a communist dictatorship. So much (imperial) wishful thinking, so little time to prolong hegemony.
The acronym that all these “forecasts” dare not reveal is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). BRICS is worse than the plague as far as the ‘Masters of the Universe’ that really control the current – rigged – world system are concerned. True, the BRICS are facing multiple problems.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
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28/02/2015
By Paul Currion*
BELGRADE, 26 February 2015 (IRIN)* – In his latest column, recovering aid worker Paul Currion asks whether the debate over the use of drones misses a fundamental point: Does their very nature compromise humanitarian principles?
**Photo: Paul Currion/IRIN | The use of drones for civilian and humanitarian purposes is increasing
Drones! They’re everywhere. There’s probably a drone over your house right now, especially if you’re:
a. planning an act of terrorism;
b. chatting with your mum on Skype about an act of terrorism on the news;
c. wondering whether drone strikes themselves are in fact a state-sanctioned act of terrorism.
Of course it’s grossly unfair to paint all drones with the same brush, and also impractical because you’d need a very big brush. Drones are being tested by humanitarian organisations for a range of activities such as needs assessment, aid delivery, and buzzing Bhutanese farmers.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 