For months the people of Swat lived in faraway camps while the Taliban and Pakistan’s army battled it out in the scenic valley.
Although military operations continue, the government says Swat is safe enough for people to go home. In this exclusive report from the district’s main town Mingora, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder finds thousands doing just that.
Increasing unemployment and poverty in Jordan has forced many children, some as young as 12, to take up jobs under tough physical conditions.
A government-funded center is trying to keep the child labourers off the streets by providing them education rehabilitation and psycho-social support. Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports.
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Mohammed Awamleh sells vegetables on the streets of the Jordanian capital for 12 hours a day to help feed his family. But he is only 14 and would much rather be back in school.
Mohammed is just one of an estimated 33,000 child workers across the small desert kingdom, forced to endure the hard grind of daily working life, often laboring long hours for a paltry wage.
He left school a year ago, and now earns four dinars ($5.6) a day working at a stall in Sweileh, in northwest Amman.
“I had to work because our financial situation is extremely bad,” Mohammed, whom customers call “the little master,” told Agence France-Presse. “My brother is 16 and he also sells vegetables. Our older brother is unemployed. He’s 23.”
In Jordan, a country of around six million people with 70 percent of them under the age of 30, unemployment is 14.3 percent, according to official figures. Independent estimates put it much higher at 25 percent.
Mohammed said his father is ill and needs “non-stop” treatment.
“Life is really hard and it’s getting harder. Every day I dream of leaving this work, going back to school and living a normal life,” he said.
Minister of Social Development Hala Latuf said most children who work are pressured into doing so to improve their families’ income, and estimated the number of child workers at 32,600.
“Society expects them to work and shoulder responsibilities, regardless of what age they are,” Latuf told AFP, adding that most child workers in Jordan are aged between five and 17.
“These uneducated children are in danger. They don’t know their rights and they face health, injury and exploitation risks,” she said.
Mohammed Mahmud is 13 and does not worry about such matters.
“I don’t go to school but I am happy with my work because I help my family,” he said of his 10-hour day selling children’s comics on the streets of Khalda in western Amman.
“I am proud to work. There’s nothing to be ashamed of because I am not a beggar. I have two younger brothers who need to be fed.”
The young teenager, who said he makes around $140 a month, was at first reluctant to talk to AFP, thinking that the reporter was a government labor official.
“They (employment officials) make things hard for me by trying to prevent me from working and confiscating my comics,” complained the youngster, sporting a cowboy hat and a pair of dusty jeans.
The parliament of Iceland, the Althing, on Thursday voted in favor of a proposal to authorize the government to apply for membership of the European Union.
The result was 33 to 28 in favor of an EU application. Two MPs abstained.
A final decision on EU membership for Iceland will eventually depend on a referendum.
The result was broadly along party lines with all of the Social Democratic MPs voting for the resolution. The Social Democrats are the bigger of two coalition government parties.
The minority party in the coalition, the Left-Greens, voted mostly in favour, but a few Left-Green MPs voted against. The Left-Green party is opposed to EU membership, but the leader of the party, Mr. Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, finance minister, says it is important to resolve the “European question.”
The vote follows a final round of marathon debates that have lasted for several days. It is expected that Iceland’s application will be sent in time for it to be on the agenda of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting on July 27th.
The vote took more than two hours as the Althing first had to vote on three amendment proposals by the opposition.
Iceland will put any agreement with the EU on membership to a referendum.
Smokers in Turkey can no longer light up in bars and cafes, after the government extended a smoking ban to all public places.
The ban has long been enforced in many European countries, but with more than 40 per cent of adults, or 25 million people, smoking in Turkey, many there may find it a hard habit to break.
Al Jazeera’s Emma Hayward reports.
More from EurasiaNet:
Smoking in Turkey can almost be considered a national pastime. But the Turkish government is now taking firm action to get Turks to break off their long love affair with tobacco.
That smoking is a health hazard is commonly accepted these days in Turkey, yet that does not dissuade millions from indulging a nicotine habit. More than half the adult male population puffs away on a regular basis. Figures compiled by the Turkish Thoracic Association suggest that smoking’s healthcare toll could approach $30 billion, while Turks spend an estimated $20 billion annually on tobacco. The government raises roughly $8.5 billion in revenue every year through tobacco taxes.
The healthcare factor is just one element pushing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to restrict smoking. Erdogan personally is said to be an inveterate foe of tobacco.
According to published reports, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the former general who ousted the civilian government last year, has captured 52.6% of the vote in Mauritania thus winning the Presidency in the first round. The main challengers in Mauritania’s presidential election have rejected the poll results. They are now calling for an international investigation.The vote was the first since Abdel Aziz’s 2008 coup ousted the Islamic state’s first democratically elected leader. Mauritania did not permit international election monitors.
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The man who ousted Mauritania’s first democratically elected leader in a coup has achieved a landslide win in the country’s presidential election, amid opposition claims of fraud.
Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz took 52.6 per cent of the vote, enough to avoid a run off vote, Mohamed Ould Rzeizim, the nation’s interior minister, announced on Sunday.
Just hours before, several opposition candidates rejected the poll as a sham, calling it an “electoral coup”.
In a joint statement, the four main challengers to Abdel Aziz said: “Firstly we firmly reject these prefabricated results, secondly we call on the international community to put in place an inquiry to shed some light on the electoral process.”
Mohamed Ould Biya, a spokesman for the four opposition candidates, said electoral lists had been tampered with and voters had used fake ballot papers and identity cards during the poll to add to Abdel Aziz’s tally.
But interior minister Rzeizim said there had been no formal complaints and an African Union team in the country called the elections transparent.
Opposition defeated
Neither the United Nations nor the European Union, which cut aid to Mauritania as a result of Abdel Aziz’s coup in August last year, sent election observers to Mauritania.
The result must still be confirmed by Mauritania’s constitutional court.
Abdel Aziz’s opponents in the election included: Ahmed Ould Daddah, a veteran opposition figure; Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, another former coup leader; and Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a politician who has spearheaded the challenge to last year’s coup.
Messaoud and Ould Daddah were Abdel Aziz’s closest challengers with 16.3 and 13.7 per cent of the vote, respectively, according to the interior ministry figures.
Fighting ‘terrorism’
As president-elect, Abdel Aziz vowed to beef up Mauritanias army and “fight terrorism in all its forms”.
“We will fight terrorism in all its forms, we will fight it … by strengthening the resources at the army’s disposal,” he said in his first address since being declared the north African country’s new leader.
The former general’s words come just weeks after an American teacher was shot dead in the capital Nouakchott, with a branch of al-Qaeda claiming responsibility.
Ahead of the elections, Mauritanian police clashed with suspected al-Qaeda fighters in the capital.
The US had supported Mauritania’s offensive against fighters in the country, but froze co-operation after last year’s coup.