11/09/2015
With more than 4 million children having left Syria – half of them for Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey – in a “crisis of biblical proportions,” the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education on 10 September 2015 said $250 million could get 1 million refugee children in school by the time the UN General Assembly meets later this month.
Girls in Damascus, Syria, shown in their classroom with school bags and stationery supplies they received from UNICEF and partners. Photo: UNICEF/Tomoya Sonoda
“While the recent focus has rightly been on refugees entering Europe, there are 4 million refugees – 2 million of them children – who are holed up in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, many living on the streets in a crisis which is now of biblical proportions,” Gordon Brown told reporters at UN Headquarters via telephone.
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11/09/2015
By Robert J. Burrowes*
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9 September 2015
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There is much being written about the refugee crisis in Europe at the moment but none of what I have read explains why the problem is occurring and what will need to be done for the problem to be addressed.
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**Syrian Civil War refugees in neighboring countries (as of 4 September 2015) | Author: Furfur | Wikimedia Commons
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Refugees are just one symptom of a deeper crisis.
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Moreover, like other symptoms of this deeper crisis, the global elite is happy to use this symptom to keep us utterly preoccupied; after all, the immediacy of the refugee problem is all too demanding of our attention and our compassion.
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08/09/2015
By Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate*
7 September 2015 – TRANSCEND Media Service
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire calls upon the UK government to move from military proposals, such as bombing Syria, to humanitarian solutions in tackling the refugee crisis, one of the greatest tragedies and human suffering facing Europe since the WWII.
Mairead Maguire
The arrival of thousands of refugees and migrants from Middle East and African countries into Europe–many of whom have died on the journey–forces us to ask ‘how can they be helped immediately?’
Why are they fleeing their countries? How can the root cause of the problem be solved?
Bombing of Syria, as proposed by the UK Prime Minister, will only force more refugees to flee Syria taking extraordinary risks with their lives to find some security and safety from their war-torn lands.
She said,
“The UK Government has a moral responsibility to the refugees fleeing in fear across Europe. They are the victims of wars, invasions and occupations of their countries. Successive British administrations have spent billions on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, plus a covert intervention in Syria.
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07/09/2015
By Pepe Escobar*
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5 September 2015 (RT)* — We’ve had it coming. And when it came, virtually the whole planet reacted with stunned silence. Sometimes it takes just a photograph to put a noxiously complex version of hell in perspective.
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**On 26 August 2015, a distressed child rests over the shoulder of the man carrying him, in the town of Gevgelija, on the border with Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Photo: UNICEF/Tomislav Georgiev
Little did Nilufer Demir, 29, the female photojournalist of the Turkish Dogan News agency know that the moment she saw little Aylan Kurdi, 3, washed ashore at the Ali Hoca Burnu beach near Bodrum, she would be making history.
Aylan is alone, as if suspended by the immense solitude of death, just as his family’s dream of offering him a new life in a new continent away from death and destruction was about to be fulfilled.
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07/09/2015
The government’s destruction of the homes of slum dwellers in Cairo last month highlighted the appalling conditions in which millions live.
Wael Mohamed, a 47-year-old resident of the Sudan Nest slum, poses for a photograph with five of his daughters (MEE/Mariam Musa)
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CAIRO, 4 September 2015 (Middle East Eye)* – Last Tuesday, police forces raided the Sudan Nest, a slum near al-Dokki neighbourhood in Cairo.
Police forcibly evacuated the inhabitants of the slum from their shoddy dwellings, using bulldozers to destroy houses in front of residents’ own eyes.
When angry inhabitants tried to stop the demolitions and fight back, police shot tear gas and dispersed them.
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06/09/2015
European leaders may differ about how to respond to the asylum-seekers and migrants surging their way, but they seem to agree they face a crisis of enormous proportions. Germany’s Angela Merkel has called it “the biggest challenge I have seen in European affairs in my time as chancellor.” Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has warned that the migrant crisis could pose a major threat to the “soul” of Europe.
**Families stand at a reception centre waiting to be registered for a temporary transit visa at a reception centre near the town of Gevgelija in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. | © UNICEF/UNI195499/Klincarov
But before we get carried away by such apocalyptic rhetoric, we should recognize that if there is a crisis, it is one of politics, not capacity.
There is no shortage of drama in thousands of desperate people risking life and limb to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean in rickety boats or enduring the hazards of land journeys through the Balkans.
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05/09/2015
By Uri Avnery*
5 September 2015
THE MISDEEDS of Napoleon’s occupation army in Spain were not photographed. Photography had not yet been invented. The valiant fighters against the occupation had to rely on Francisco Goya for the immortal painting of the resistance.
Uri Avnery
The partisans and underground fighters against the German occupation of their countries in World War II had no time to take pictures.
Even the heroic uprising of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw was not filmed by the participants.
The Germans themselves filmed their atrocities, and, being Germans, they catalogued and filed them in an orderly way.
In the meantime, photography has become common commonplace.
The Israeli occupation in the Palestinian occupied territories is being filmed all the time.
Everybody now has cellular phones that take pictures. Also, Israeli peace organizations have distributed cameras to many Arab inhabitants.
Soldiers shoot with guns. The Palestinians shoot pictures.
It is not yet clear which are more effective in the long run: the bullets or the photos.
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05/09/2015
By Catherine Shakdam*
3 September 2015 (RT)* – Revolution’s fire is burning bright in the Levant and its winds are infectious. From Lebanon to Iraq and beyond, Bahrain, the Middle East is once more holding its breath before the defiance of its youth. This time around, revolutionaries have their eyes locked on the Establishment.
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**Photo: 2015 Lebanese protests – 22 August. | Author: Sonia Sevilla | Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. | Wikipedia Commons
Four years after Tunisia set fire to the barricades by rising against authoritarianism (2011), inspiring an entire generation to denounce nepotism and oligarchic capitalism, Lebanon and Iraq are setting the tone for a second revolutionary wave – only this time, protesters are speaking a very different language and their demands are rooted in secularism, fair political representation and social justice.
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03/09/2015
2 September 2015 (Middle East Eye)*– Protests in Lebanon that were initially launched as a demonstration against the country’s rubbish crisis have captured attention for another reason: in a rare show, protesters out on the streets are chanting their demands outside of what many would argue to be the confines of social-sectarian groups and political parties.
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Lebanese people gather at the Martyrs’ Square during a rally to protest the ongoing rubbish crisis (AA) | Source: Middle East Eye
On 17 July, the government’s contract with the cleaning company Sukleen expired, resulting in the suspension of rubbish collecting services.
Rubbish piled up in the streets, with the hot summer sun contributing to a nauseating smell and repellent heaps obstructing the roads and intersections.
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03/09/2015
BEIRUT, 2 September 2015 (IRIN)* – Imagine Syria didn’t exist – that the war never happened. Suddenly Europe’s migration crisis doesn’t look so bad.
(1) Photo: András D Hajdú/IRIN | Syrian children cross the Hungarian border as they try to reach Europe
The two EU countries that receive the vast majority of arrivals by boat are Italy and Greece.
In Italy, the number of sea arrivals (mostly from Libya) has changed little since last year.
From January to the end of August, there were 114,000, up from 112,000 over the same period in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
This is still higher than Europe would want, but not a number that a rich economic bloc of more than 500 million inhabitants shouldn’t be able to accommodate.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 