Here is the Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

Turkish Coup Plot
Turkey has indicted 86 people on charges of membership in an illegal ultranationalist group and plotting a coup against the government. More from the Financial Times.

Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir Charged with War Crimes
The Sudanese government has responded angrily after an international prosecutor accused President Omar al-Bashir of genocide in Darfur. He has been charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. A report from the BBC and a video report from the Associated Press:

In Defense of the Gypsies
Though in my personal life they have been nothing but trouble, I cannot stay silent with what is going on with the Roma, the Gypsies, in Italy. An op-ed by Seumas Milne in the UK Guardian speaks to the problem.

Italy’s campaign against the Roma has ominous echoes of its fascist past, and the silence of our leaders is deafening.

French and Regional Languages in France
Language Log covers the debate over language in France.

Did Lee Kuan Yew Commit Perjury?
Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew testified to a laudatory letter that was never sent by an international legal organization. Lee, Singapore’s octogenarian Minister Mentor and the country’s first Prime Minister, volunteered under oath during cross-examination in the May trial of Chee that the International Bar Association, following its October 2007 convention in Singapore, wrote a letter to the organizers, the Law Society of Singapore, describing “how impressed they were by the standards they found to obtain in the judiciary…Standards of the rule of law and the judges, the meritocracy which is practiced throughout the judiciary.” In fact, says the International Bar Association, it did no such thing. The story in the Asia Sentinel.

Syria’s Diplomatic Isolation is Ending
The Asia Times looks at Syria’s diplomatic offensive from Doha to Paris. Meanwhile, the New York Times takes a different view on Syria’s diplomatic moment in the sun.

Sinaloa Gripped in a Drug War
At least 21 people, including a 12-year-old girl and other ordinary citizens, have been killed by warring drug gangs since Thursday in the western state of Sinaloa, in one of the worst spasms of violence in memory in a region long conditioned to narcotics-related savagery. More from the Los Angeles Times. I will keep on harping on this but Mexico is sliding into chaos. Its drug wars are escalating past the point of no return that will require massive outside assistance to quell. This is a repeat of what Colombia endured between 1985 and 1992, only now it is on the doorstep of the United States.

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Here is the Monday, July 14th, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

A Deadly Day in Afghanistan
Nine US soldiers and several militants were killed after rebels stormed a remote outpost in Afghanistan in one of the deadliest attacks on international forces in years. Another 15 US soldiers were wounded. It was the deadliest day for US troops in Afghanistan in over three years. A video report from the Associated Press:

Fighting in Sri Lanka Intensifies
Fighting along the front lines in northern Sri Lanka killed 31 Tamil Tigers on Sunday as the civil war between the rebels and government forces continued to escalate. Over the weekend, at least 60 rebel were killed. Reports from the International Herald Tribune and Reuters India.

Sarkozy’s Club Med
President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday sought to shift Europe’s strategic focus towards the Middle East, north Africa and the Balkans, hosting 42 heads of state and government at a summit in Paris to launch a new Mediterranean Union. Initially concentrated on infrastructure and energy projects such as making north Africa a hub for solar power, Sarkozy’s grand initiative is acutely political, claiming a pole position for France in European foreign policy-making after years of drift and seeking to redirect policy from the east of Europe to the south. From the UK Guardian. I am often perplexed by Sarkozy and I am cautious on this initiative but the Financial Times does note that Sarkozy managed to get Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Syrian President Assad to sit down in the same room, though Assad did leave the room for Olmert’s speech. And then there is this:

After meeting Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, on the sidelines of the Paris summit, Mr Olmert declared: “It seems to me that we have never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today.”

In concrete terms, however, the most striking outcome of the weekend’s diplomatic activity appeared to be the announcement that Syria would open an embassy in Beirut and Lebanon an embassy in Damascus for the first time since Lebanese independence in 1943.

Such a step would imply Syrian acceptance of the sovereignty of Lebanon, a state where Damascus has always sought to exert influence and where Syrian troops were stationed for almost 30 years after 1976.

“We can say that Lebanon has moved from being a zone of turbulence, a war zone, to a more pacified zone where the Lebanese, and only the Lebanese, have the right to determine their own future,” Mr Assad said after talks on Saturday with Michel Suleiman, Lebanon’s president.

Since taking power in 2000, Mr Assad has on several occasions dangled the prospect of diplomatic recognition of Lebanon. If there is a difference this time, it may rest in Mr Sarkozy’s statement on Saturday that he intends to visit Syria in September – a gesture that the French leader could withdraw, if by then Mr Assad has not fulfilled his promise to open an embassy in Lebanon.

I still don’t fully trust Sarkozy but this is an achievement that is worth underscoring and I congratulate him on his success.

Seoul Demands Investigation of Shooting Death of Tourist in the DPRK
Last week’s shooting death of a female South Korean tourist who wandered off a resort and into a military installation is raising question. Apparently, tourists have wandered off before and none had been shot. The government yesterday urged North Korea to allow in South Korean investigators to learn the details of the killing of a South Korean tourist at the Mount Geumgang resort. The Unification Ministry also demanded the North take “responsible measures” to prevent a recurrence of the shooting death, which it said “cannot be justified under any circumstances.” More details from the Korea Herald.

An Update on Malaysia
The Asia Sentinel looks at Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s decision to step down in 2010 in favour of his deputy Najib Tun Razak, who is scandal-riddled. All in all, it has been a topsy turvy year in Kuala Lumpur.

Thailand’s Temple Row
A dispute Khmer temple along the Thai-Cambodian border has become a major issue in Thai politics. More from the Straits Times.

Iran Executes Six In Public
Reuters reports that Iran has executed six people in public in the northeastern city of Sabzevar, state radio said on Monday, the second report of a public execution in the Islamic Republic in less than a week. Iranian radio reported the execution but did not offer details. Execution is by hanging in Iran. In Saudi Arabia, beheadings still occur. Amnesty International in April listed Iran as the world’s second most prolific executioner last year, with at least 317 people put to death, trailing only China which carried out 470 death sentences.

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A Photo Journal from Darfur

There are over 240,000 Sudanese refugees already in Chad (Tchad), and a nearly equal number of Chadians who have been displaced by the chaos along the border. The influx pushes the number of people in eastern Chad dependent on an already overstretched aid operation toward half a million. In February of this year, at least another 10,000 to 15,000 more flooded in as Chinese-sponsored Sudanese militias did another round of ethnic cleansing. And while the crisis in Darfur is the most visible, it is not the only refugee crisis in the Sudan. Juba is the other and it gets scant attention because of the remoteness of the area. Here is a recent report from late May 2008 in the Sudan Tribune a London-based group that tracks events in the Sudan.

An article in today’s Washington Post:

Five years after the Darfur conflict began, the nature of violence across this vast desert region has changed dramatically, from a mostly one-sided government campaign against civilians to a complex free-for-all that is jeopardizing an effective relief mission to more than 2.5 million displaced and vulnerable people.
Though there are some swaths of calm in Darfur, fighting among rebels and among Arab tribes has uprooted more than 70,000 people this year, compared with about 60,000 displaced by government attacks on villages, according to U.N. figures.

Although powerful countries such as China, which is heavily invested in Sudan’s oil, have been criticized by human rights activists for not doing more to pressure the Sudanese government to end the conflict, some analysts say the breakdown of command lines on all sides has made the situation increasingly impervious to outside influence.

Meanwhile, the proliferation of banditry has become the biggest threat to humanitarian groups undertaking the largest relief effort in the world and to a nascent U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force. Their trucks and SUVs are stolen almost daily, used as fighting vehicles or sold for cash to middlemen who haul them to Chad and Libya.

The Refugee Crisis in Juba in the southern Sudan
In January 2005, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and Khartoum’s Islamic-dominated government signed the comprehensive peace agreement. Many of the four million people displaced by Africa’s longest-running conflict started returning home. And while the world watches as best it can the crisis in Darfur, the tenuous peace in Juba has fallen apart. China smells oil and these people have to go.

International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization

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The Karen of Burma
One of the most forgotten people are the Karen, an ethinc minority that lives along the Burma-Thai border. Numbering at least 9 million people, the Karen are the world’s third largest ethnic group that do not have their own state.

A Subset of the Karen are called the Miao

International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization

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The Forgotten People of the Western Sahara

200,000 Sahrawi Refugees Abandoned in the Sahara
This was my first job out of college working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. That was 1986-1987. At that time they had been there, which is in the middle of the Sahara, for 12 years. They are still there.

The Camp in Tindouf
The camps in Tindouf, comprised of between 160,000 and 200,000 Sahrawis, are home to those who fled the Western Sahara when Spain withdrew in 1975. Morocco occupied the northern two-thirds and Mauritania the bottom third. After a few years of Polsario attacks, Mauritania withdrew and Morocco occupied the whole of the sparsely populated but mineral rich area. The Tindouf camps are among those with the longest duration in the world, not a very prestigious title. Some live in tents, others in abode buildings and parts now resemble a city. Perhaps as many as a third of Sahrawis call Tindouf home.

The Saharawis have their own democratically elected government, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), with men and women ministers and parliamentarians. Its officials run the camps. The government looks after its people and seeks the support of other nations for the proposed referendum so that the Saharawi people can return to their own country. The SADR is recognised as the legitimate government of Western Sahara by at least 80 countries, most recently by the Republic of South Africa and Kenya. It is a member of the African Union. The United States does not recognized the SADR but has called for a plebiscite for the region.

The temperature reaches 135 F in summer and drops below freezing in winter. The area is often affected by sandstorms, called siroccos, which sweep through the refugee camps without warning. They can remake the landscape in minutes. In the Spring, flash floods wipe out entire stretches of tents and homes destroying everything in their path.

The Aftermath of a Flood

A Video By A Sahrawi Refugee Living in Norway

Morocco’s Wall of Shame
To prevent the Sahrawis, many of whom are nomadic, from entering and leaving, Morocco has built a wall across the length of the Western Sahara. Forts are built into the ramparts.

A website in Spanish: Sahrawi Independiente

I have not forgotten my time amongst you and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t remember the kindness I received from a people who had lost it all. The lessons you taught me I remember to this day and I carry them with me wherever I go ever mindful that so much more needs to be done on your behalf.

A Sahrawi Music Video Made in Spain

Spain needs to undo the mistake made in 1975.

International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization

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The above table points to Afghanistan’s problems. It fares poorly on most socio-economic measures. That is in part due to the legacy of a conflict that has dragged on in one form or another since 1975. Even during the brief respite from war, Afghanistan then had to endure the Taliban regime, perhaps the most barbaric regime since Pol Pot’s reign in Cambodia.

Afghani Refugees

Since 1978, 3.7 million Afghans have sought refuge in neighboring countries (2 million currently live in Pakistan and 1.5 million in Iran), while at least 900,000 were displaced from their homes within Afghanistan before September 11. An estimated 30,000 refugees live in India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries. Even before the current refugee movement, the neighboring governments were showing impatience with the large, intractable refugee populations in their countries. Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have closed their borders though many still trickle in through the numerous mountain passes.

The “Lucky” Ones in Pakistan

Inside Afghanistan, millions of Afghans rely on international food aid for survival. The economy, ruined by years of civil strife and Taliban rule, suffered a further blow when the worst drought in 30 years caused crop failures that led hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave their homes in search of food beginning in June 2000.

International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization

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Today is International Refugee Day. By The Fault takes a look at the plight of refugees worldwide. This post combines a look at refugees in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan (Darfur & Juba), the Western Sahara, and the Karen of Burma. Each will be broken out for separate viewing.

There are at least 11.4 million refugees world-wide.

Iraqi Refugees By Location and Number

About 2 million Iraqis live in increasingly difficult conditions in countries like Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Another 1.7 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs). The United States has not offered any meaningful assistance. How many Iraqi refugees did the U.S. resettle in 2006? 202. The US State Department offered to resettle 7,000 in 2007. It barely cracked 150. Brazil, a country that neither supported the invasion or has had anything to do with the war, took in over 4,000 in 2007.

Most of the Iraqis living abroad represent the middle class and professional classes of Iraq, those with a means to get out. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel recently offered to starting accepting Iraqi refugees who are Christian for permanent resettlement in Germany. There were approximately two million Iraqi Christians before the war representing about 8% of Iraq’s population. By Iraqi standards, they are well-off and well-education. They also represented Iraq’s merchant class of shopkeepers.

Iraqi Christian Refugees

Iraqi Shi’ite Refugees

Here is what Nir Rosen wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post last year:

The crisis in Iraq has the entire region on edge waiting to see if Iraq will come to them. While Sunni leaders in the region, whether in Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, have had to pay lip service to anti-imperialism and Arab nationalism by calling for an end to the occupation, the truth is that off the record nothing frightens them more than an American withdrawal from Iraq.
Fear of successive waves of Iraqi refugees resonates throughout the Middle East, and no discussion of Arab governments’ reluctance to acknowledge their plight can begin without reference to the Palestinian experience. … The presence of the Palestinians also contributed to the destabilization of several countries, while in places like Lebanon they were preyed upon by more powerful militias, which slaughtered many of them. Today radical groups based in Palestinian refugee camps are exporting fighters to Iraq.

Unable to return home, running out of savings, carrying with them sectarian grudges and many with military experience, Iraqi refugees may yet destabilize much of the region.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released yesterday its figures (full report) regarding the global numbers of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs):

“UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres expressed concern Tuesday about the growing number of refugees worldwide after an annual survey said there were 11.4 million refugees and 26 million others displaced internally by conflict or persecution at the end of 2007. “After a five-year decline in the number of refugees between 2001 and 2005, we have now seen two years of increases, and that’s a concern,” Guterres said in London. (…)

“We are now faced with a complex mix of global challenges that could threaten even more forced displacement in the future. They range from multiple new conflict-related emergencies in world hotspots to bad governance, climate-induced environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources, and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places.”"

The number of refugees and IDPs increased by 2.5 million this year compared to last year. The UNHCR provides relief for approximately 14 million people.

So who are these millions of people? Unsurprisingly, we found roughly 3 million Afghans in Pakistan and Iran, 2 million Iraqis in Syria and Jordan. Both countries account for almost half of the world’s refugees. They are followed by Colombians (552,000), Sudanese (523,000) and Somalis (457,000). At the same time, the top refugee-hosting countries in 2007 included Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Germany and Jordan.

As for the IDPs, the order may be different but the countries are roughly the same: 3 million people in Colombia; 2.4 million in Iraq; 1.3 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; 1.2 million in Uganda; and 1 million in Somalia.

The UNHCR also reported a 5% increase in applications for asylums. Most of that increase comes from Iraqis trying to obtain political asylum in Europe (good luck with that! European countries have gotten less and less generous in the political asylum departments).

There is some good news though:

“Some 731,000 refugees were able to go home under voluntary repatriation programmes in 2007, including to Afghanistan (374,000), Southern Sudan (130,700), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (60,000), Iraq (45,400) and Liberia (44,400). In addition, an estimated 2.1 million internally displaced people went home during the year.”

For those who cannot go home, the UNHCR tries to find long-term resettlements solutions in third countries. There are more applications but not that many successes, only 1% of refugees are resettled in third countries. And as the New York Times notes, the burden of receiving refugees is shouldered by poorer countries rather than rich ones. But it is a problem because a large population of refugees can be a source of instability for the receiving countries, especially when there are ethnic differences and when politicians use refugees for their own purposes (as was the case in the DRC and the Hutus refugees from Rwanda).

June 20th is World Refugee Day.

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Here is the Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 edition of interesting reads and news from around the world.

UN Warns the Sudan on Darfur
Sudan must stop turning a blind eye to crimes committed during the conflict in Darfur and hand over suspected war criminals to the International Criminal Court, the UN Security Council said on Monday. More from Reuters plus an editorial from New York Times.

Chad’s Silent Civil War
In neighbouring Chad, a silent civil war gets a little louder. Armed rebels have overrun three towns in the volatile east of the country and appear to be headed toward the capital, Ndjamena. Reports from the New York Times and from All Africa. I was recently in Chad and Ndjamena had not yet recoverd from the last rebel incursion.

Japan Executes Three
Executions are rare in Japan but today Japan conducted three including notorious serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls and eating some of their bodies. Agence France-Presse covers the story. Japan is the only other industrialized nation to conduct executions.

Gridlock in Korean Strike
Striking truckers and shippers continue to hold firm against the government of President Lee Myung-bak. Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports that talks aimed at settling the strike are going nowhere, just like Korea’s products.

Valuing Women’s Work
Angry Bear looks at the economics of housework and raising children.

Climate Change and Refugees
The UK Guardian has an excellent (and short) article on the impact of global climate change on migration patterns and the rise of climate refugees. According to UNHCR (my first employer out of university), there are now 37.4 million climate refugees, a 3 million increase over 2007.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. Speaking for me only.

Via Der Spiegel (who has done an incredible job in bringing this issue to light repeatedly):

“Ahmad O. stabbed his sister more than 20 times because the 16-year-old girl didn’t live her life according to his values. Women’s rights advocate Seyran Ates is now calling for German society to intensify its efforts to stop honor killings. “A girl isn’t a whore if she goes out,” she says.

Morsal O. was 16, a young girl with joie de vivre. She laughed a lot and she was a go-getter. She was a good student, had ambition and a lot ahead of her in life. But she was murdered on Friday, May 9. Her 23-year-old brother Ahmad, with the help of a cousin, lured her to a parking lot near a subway station in the German port city of Hamburg under a false pretense and stabbed her 20 times with a knife.

If Morsal had known she would be coming face to face with her brother, she probably wouldn’t have gone that evening. The two hadn’t been on talking terms for quite some time, and Ahmed had threatened his sister repeatedly. Just before her murder, Morsal had sought refuge from her family, who moved to Germany from Afghanistan 13 years ago, at a number of city social facilities, most recently living for more than a year in a youth safe house. But she never succeeded in entirely breaking off contact with her family.”

But the family thinks that the brother killed her out of love. I guess for some patriarchal communities, love = entitlement to harassment, threats, assault and ultimately murder, and Ahmad had done all of them against his sister. And because Morsal was resistant to her parents’ authority (unusual, for a teenager, I know!), it was her brother’s job to monitor her closely and he outsourced the job to his extended family.

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