5 January 2018 (UNHCR)* – They walk for days through jungles and mountains, or brave dangerous sea voyages across the Bay of Bengal. They arrive exhausted, hungry and sick – in need of international protection and humanitarian assistance.
Over 630,000 refugees have fled to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017. Photo: UNHCR
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar. The latest exodus began on 25 August 2017, when violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
5 January 2018, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh (IOM)*– This week, Rohingya refugees were still arriving in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – the New Year bringing no end to the reports of violence and fears, which forced them to flee their homes in Myanmar.
Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh. Photo: Muse Mohammed / UN Migration Agency (IOM) 2017
A major upsurge of violence in Northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, in late August 2017 forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
6 January 2018 (Wall Street International) – They are as many as one billion human beings, often geographically isolated, living on the political and economic margins of their countries, and thus more prone to hunger and poverty.
On top of this, they are increasingly affected by climate change and climate-induced disasters. As a logic, understandable consequence, the mountain people become more vulnerable. And so they migrate to urban areas and even abroad.
1 January 2018 (TRANSCEND Media Service)People living now in Yemen’s third largest city, Ta’iz, have endured unimaginable circumstances for the past three years. Civilians fear to go outside lest they be shot by a sniper or step on a land mine.
Kathy Kelly
Both sides of a worsening civil war use Howitzers, Kaytushas, mortars and other missiles to shell the city. Residents say no neighborhood is safer than another, and human rights groups report appalling violations, including torture of captives. Two days ago, a Saudi-led coalition bomber killed 54 people in a crowded market place.
Before the civil war developed, the city was regarded as the official cultural capital of Yemen, a place where authors and academics, artists and poets chose to live.
Ta’iz was home to a vibrant, creative youth movement during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Young men and women organized massive demonstrations to protest the enrichment of entrenched elites as ordinary people struggled to survive.
2 January 2018 (openDemocracy)* — Women migrant workers face extreme forms of social control in Saudi Arabia. One Sri Lankan woman shares her story of everyday resistance despite serious constraints.
**Photo: Riyadh Skyline showing the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) and the famous Kingdom Tower | Author: B.alotaby | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
2 January 2018 – La Niña is expected to impact weather around the world in 2018, a United Nations relief official said, urging governments and the international community to act early to mitigate the impacts from this potentially destructive weather pattern and its counterpart, El Niño.
Most of the reefs in the Seychelles have died due to El Niño, bleaching, fishing and the rising temperature of the seawater. Photo: Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR
“We know that the earlier we’re able to put in place a response, the more efficient and effective that response can be,” Greg Puley, Chief of Policy Advice and Planning Section, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told UN News.
Ernest. Photo credit: IOM/Monica Chiriac | 1,848 kms from home #iamamigrant
“The route from Nigeria to Libya was terrible. The driver told us that the road wasn’t good so we had to wait. We were stranded in the desert for three weeks, with no food, water or shade. We were 30 when we left, but only five survived. Some were drinking their pee in order to survive. We had to bury so many people. As I was digging their holes, I was planning for mine as well.
United Nations human rights experts deplored Saudi Arabia’s continued use of counter-terrorism and security-related laws against human rights defenders and urged the release of all those detained for peacefully exercising their rights.
Independent Expert on Human Rights Michel Forst. Photo: Jean-Marc Ferré
“The rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are severely restricted in Saudi Arabia,” the group said in a joint statement issued on Tuesday [2 January 2018].
President Donald Trump appears to be on course to punish the United Nations after most UN member states refused to endorse the US President’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
2 January 2018 — Among Bloomberg’s many profitable activities there is a convenient Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which has just published its findings for 2017.
Roberto Savio
It covers only the 500 richest people, and it proudly announces that they have increased their wealth by 1 trillion dollars in just one year.
Their fortunes went up by 23 per cent to top comfortable 5 trillion dollars (to put this in perspective, the US budget is now at 3.7 trillion).
That obviously means an equivalent reduction for the rest of the population, which has lost those trillion dollars.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 