March 2016 (Politics for the People) – When Arab streets exploded with fury, from Tunis to Sanaa, pan-Arabism seemed, then, like a nominal notion. Neither did the so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ use slogans that affirmed its Arab identity, nor did angry Egyptian youth raise the banner proclaiming Arab unity atop the high buildings adjacent to Tahrir Square.
A 1916 map of the Middle East showing French (“A”) and British (“B”) areas of control, according to the secret Sykes-Picot agreement.
Oddly, the Arabism of the ‘Arab Spring’ was almost as if a result of convenience.
NAIROBI, 7 March 2016 (IRIN)– A months-long investigation by IRIN into the secretive intelligence-linked firm Palantir, reveals a cosying up to aid organizations large and small, including a bargain-basement contract with a sensitive UN agency, and a flirtation with the international response to the Ebola outbreak. But how close is too close?
ROME, 13 March 2016 (IPS) – The last formal act of European disintegration was the last negotiation between 28 European leaders and the Prime Minister of Turkey. The deal, against all international treaties, is a total capitulation to European values.
Roberto Savio
Europe will give Turkey 6 billion dollars, and in exchange Turkey will keep refugees from coming to Europe.
Or better, will screen everybody, and send to Europe only the Syrians who are eligible for political asylum.
This is just a way to avoid a common position on the refugees. In fact, besides keeping people out, as the President of the EU, Donald Tusk, has explicitly warned “ keep out, you are not welcome”, there is no European policy on this issue at all.
The 28 did approve by majority a plan of resettlement for 60 000 refugees (a drop in the more than a million stranded in Europe).
12 Mar, 2016 (RT)*– Fences and police forces cannot change the immigration trends that we are currently seeing and, therefore, Europe needs different political answers than those that right-wing parties offer, Dr. Rainer Rothfuss, Geopolitical Analyst and Consultant.
**Angela Merkel at the 2012 congress of the European People’s Party (EPP) | European People’s Party | Angela Merkel | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimedia Commons
Germany is preparing for key local elections which will take place this Sunday. And the results are expected to be challenging for the Chancellor, Angela Merkel who has lost significant popularity of late over her open-door migrant policy.
Meanwhile right-wing parties are gaining support with the populist Alternative for Germany party currently doing well in the polls.
Concerned about hampering the rights of displaced Iraqis seeking shelter in camps, the United Nations refugee agency on 11 March 2016 urged the Government to set up clear procedures and special facilities for screening people that are separate from camps established to provide shelter and humanitarian aid.
Displaced families in Kirkuk, Iraq, complete paperwork before picking up Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) kits, provided by the UNICEF and WFP-led Consortium. Photo: UNICEF/Lindsay Mackenzie
“There is a rising trend of newly-displaced Iraqis being forcibly transferred to camps where restrictions on their freedom of movement were being imposed in a manner disproportionate to any legitimate concern, including those related to security,” Ariane Rummery, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), toldjournalists in Geneva.
A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in South Sudan published on 11 March 2016 describes a multitude of horrendous violations in “searing detail,” in particular by Government forces, including cases of civilians burned alive or cut to pieces and a teenage girl being raped by ten soldiers.
Women and children have suffered devastating attacks in South Sudan’s Unity State. Photo: UNICEF/South Sudan/Sebastian Rich
Although all parties to the conflict have committed patterns of serious and systematic violence against civilians since fighting broke out in December 2013, the report says State actors bore the greatest responsibility during 2015, given the weakening of opposition forces.
The scale of sexual violence is particularly shocking, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) notes in a news release.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 11 March 2016 stressed the need to put the victims who were drafted by Japan as so-called “comfort women” during the Second World War at the centre of any resolution of the issue, following a meeting at United Nations Headquarters with one of the victims.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets with Ms. Gil Won-ok, one of the victims who were drafted by Japan as so-called “comfort women” during the Second World War. At right is Yoo Soon-taek, wife of Mr. Ban. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
“I share my sympathy with Ms. Gil Won-ok about the suffering and pain that she and other victims have experienced. It is crucial that the voices of victims and survivors are heard,” Bansaid.
The term ‘comfort women’ refers to hundreds of thousands of girls and women from several Asian countries abducted and forced into sexual slavery prior to and during the Second World War by the Japanese military.
8 March 2016 – The persistent preoccupation with shipping people back to Turkey instead of making unconditional efforts on resettlement and offering other safe and legal ways to Europe shows an alarmingly short-sighted and inhumane attitude to handling this crisis, said Amnesty International after European Council talks with Turkey today [8 March].
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Near the town of Gevgelija, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young Syrian girl holds the hand of an adult waiting to board a train to the Serbian border. Photo: UNICEF/Tomislav Georgiev
Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoğlu, President of the European Council Donald Tusk and President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker shared the outline of the plan for a final agreement between the EU and Turkey, in advance of the European Council meeting on 17 and 18 March.
(Brussels), 8 March 2016 – The European Union outline deal with Turkey announced on March 8, 2016, contradicts EU principles guaranteeing the right to seek asylum and against collective expulsions. EU and Turkish leaders meeting in Brussels announced an agreement in principle to stem migration and refugee flows from Turkey to Greece, including massive returns of all “irregular migrants” crossing into the Greek islands from Turkey.
GAZIANTEP, 10 March 2016 (IRIN) – Over the last five years, close to 4.8 million Syrians have fled the conflict in their country by crossing into Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. But as the war drags on, neighbours are sealing their borders. Forced from their homes by airstrikes and fighting on multiple fronts, the vast majority of Syrian asylum seekers now have no legal escape route.
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As war in Syria drags on, neighboring countries are sealing their borders leaving the vast majority of Syrians with no legal escape route | Photo: IRIN
Earlier this week, EU leaders reached a hard-won deal with Turkey aimed at ending a migration crisis that has been building since last year, and that in recent weeks has seen tens of thousands of migrants and refugees stranded in Greece.
But the agreement turns a blind eye to the fact that even larger numbers of asylum seekers are stranded back in Syria, unable to reach safety.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 