Oscar Pistorius checks in to hospital for first of mental tests Athlete arrives at psychiatric hospital in South Africa to begin the period of mental evaluation he was ordered to undergo by the judge at his murder trial Oscar Pistorius, inset, talks on a mobile phone as he arrives at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria Oscar Pistorius, inset, talks on a mobile phone as he arrives at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria Photo: AFP/GETTY
Reuters
1:50PM BST 26 May 2014
South African Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius checked in as a day patient to Pretoria's Weskoppies psychiatric hospital on Monday for the first day of a month of mental tests ordered by the judge overseeing his murder trial.
The 27-year-old track star, who faces life in prison if convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day last year, sped past a scrum of waiting television cameras in a car with tinted windows.
A heavy police contingent kept reporters from entering the grounds of the hospital, one of South Africa's foremost mental institutions.
Pistorius has denied murdering Steenkamp, saying he shot four times at a toilet door in his luxury Pretoria home to protect himself from what he thought was an intruder lurking behind it.
However, a defence forensic psychologist testified that Pistorius also had an anxiety disorder, leading judge Thokozile Masipa to send him for a mental evaluation to determine whether or not the condition affected his criminal responsibility.
One person was killed and another was injured in a shooting incident at Cape Town's international airport on Wednesday, an official said.
The shooting happened in an airport restaurant on a mezzanine floor around 6pm (4pm GMT) and there was no disruption to flight operations.
News channel eNCA said on its website that police reported at least three other people were injured in the shooting in an airport restaurant on Wednesday. The news website carries a photograph of a man lying on the floor with blood around his head.
Police would not comment on media reports that a man shot his girlfriend in a domestic incident before turning the gun on himself.
"The shooter jumped over the Ocean Basket sushi bar and chased one of the ladies working at the back," News24 quoted witness William Scott as saying. Related Articles
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"She ran though the side door, just past where I was sitting, and the man following behind her pulled out his pistol.
"He stopped her right in front of the Ocean Basket entrance when he then shot her and followed to shoot himself in the head. Before I left the lady who was shot was still alive," he said.
South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world.
The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has moved 39 steps up in the latest Forbes list of Most Powerful Women in the World.
She moved from last year's ranking of number 83 to 44. Malawian President, Joyce Banda and her Liberian counterpart, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Shirleaf, ranked 40 and 70 respectively as well as Mrs. Folorunsho Alakija (90) are other African women on the Forbes latest list of Most Powerful Women in the World.
In an addendum accompanying the list, Forbes said since Okonjo-Iweala's comeback as Nigeria's Finance Minister, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) had displayed a 6.8 per cent robust growth between 2012 and 2013, particularly given the relatively sluggish global recovery.
It stated that: "Okonjo-Iweala was key to developing the reform programmes that helped stabilise Nigeria's economy and improve governmental transparency," adding that "she has now turned her attention to Nigeria's 14 per cent unemployment rate."
In the newest Forbes ranking, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Janet Yellen, recently appointed the first woman to head the United States Federal Reserve Board (Central Bank) occupy the number one and two spots respectively.
Melinda Gates, President Dilma Roussef of Brazil, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama also featured prominently on the list. Okonjo-Iweala has continued to haul local and international honours and awards. In April alone, she emerged one of the three recipients of the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards.
She was also featured among the world's '100 Most Influential People' by the popular nigerian finance minister was 44th on forbes list. Time Magazine, in the 'Leaders Category' of the list, which she shared with Chinese President, Xi Jinping; Secretary of State, United States of America, John Kerry; Russian President, Vladmir Putin; Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, and Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe among others.
President Yoweri Museveni attended the grand finale rally for the National Resistance Movement woman flagbearer, Mrs. Rebecca Nalwanga, at Kalanga in Uganda last week. In condemning the Opposition in Uganda the President said, "some people have turned politics to a game of lies and un-seriousness". In his characteristic manner, President Museveni took advantage of the local campaign to launch an unwarranted attack on Nigeria.
In criticising the handling of the War on Terror by the Jonathan Administration President Museveni boasted thus: "I have never invited the United Nations to guard our security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call in the UN ...I would rather hang myself. We prioritised national security by developing a strong army; otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children. It will be a vote of no confidence in our country and our citizens if we can't guarantee our security. What kind of persons would we be?"
SCHOOLCHILDREN in western Sweden received a surprise visit during their handicraft class when a moose jumped through the window.
The teacher and a dozen teenagers fled the classroom on Monday to another part of the school and locked themselves into a room to escape the thrashing animal, which had wounded itself on the broken window.
Goteborg police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg told daily Aftonbladet that the young moose "was in a panic and so were the children and teacher".
Officers broke a window to let the schoolchildren out and later shot the wounded animal that couldn't find its way out of the school.
Except for the moose, no one was injured during the incident at the high school in Molndal, near the western city of Goteborg.
Doro Refugee Camp, South Sudan — Driven by hunger, hundreds of Sudanese refugees in South Sudan's Maban County have returned to Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile state in a desperate search for food.
"The present food crisis is a product of the insecurity that has been hampering humanitarian operations in many parts of the country," said Cosmas Chanda, UNHCR Representative in South Sudan, adding that up to 2,000 people had gone back across the border from camps affected by food shortages in Maban because of difficulty for UNHCR and its partners in moving aid in amid the current insecurity.
Chanda said he was concerned that the right of asylum would have little meaning if refugees had no food. "We are hopeful that the peace deal signed [on May 9] by President [Salva Kiir] and the leader of the opposition [Riek Machar] will make it possible to rapidly deliver adequate volumes of food by road to refugees and other vulnerable populations in Maban," he added.
In an interview this week with the BBC, President Kiir warned that South Sudan faced one of the "worst famines ever" unless the conflict, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, is ended. The 125,000 refugees in Maban County had fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan.
Refugees in Maban, like Momen Bashir, are resorting to desperate measures to find food, including forays into Sudan where the Sudanese armed forces continue to fight the rebel SPLM-North. Bashir recently travelled from Doro Refugee Camp to Yabus in the far south of Blue Nile state in the hope of finding employment to earn enough money to feed his family.
"Three days after I arrived in Yabus a bomb exploded," Bashir recalled, adding that he immediately fled back to South Sudan. "I risked my life. Yet I made only 20 [Sudanese] pounds, enough to buy a kilo of flour and a packet of salt."
With aid agencies unable to provide adequate quantities of food, the 30-year-old Bashir said he had felt that, as head of the household, he had to do something to help his family, including his wife, seven children, elderly mother and three aunts.
"As a man, it is my duty to feed my family," he stressed. "People are suffering. If you walk around the camp, you see they are becoming thinner and weaker," Bashir said, telling of a young mother whose weak and hungry child had died while she was out working as a water carrier for a restaurant in the camp.
Bashir's own young children stopped going to school some weeks ago. "I would walk them to school, and within the hour they would return home, unable to cope with learning on an empty stomach," he said, adding wistfully: "I did not have the heart to send them back. They are too young."
The young man said he was embarrassed that his 60-year old mother should spend her days weaving dried grass into mats, to sell at the market. He had hoped that his trip to Yabus would provide a solution, but now he is back where he started.
"We recognize the refugees' predicament," said Adan Ilmi, UNHCR's head of office in Maban County. "They depend largely on food assistance for their survival. We are leaving no stone unturned in the effort to bring food to Maban, including expanding the airstrip for C-130 aircraft to land."
UNHCR is also engaging the refugee leadership to discourage cross-border movements. "There is a constant risk of direct or indirect attack in Blue Nile state," Ilmi said, "and the threat of recruitment by fighting forces, including of children and youth, is ever present."
UBA — United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) officials said Tuesday that men in uniform are occupying at least 30 schools in five different states in South Sudan, interrupting the education of tens of thousands of children whose lives have already been disrupted by six months of conflict.
“We appeal to the Ministry of Defense and the leaders of the armed forces on both sides to make sure that they don’t use schools, hospitals or any places where we urgently need social services, that they leave these places alone, such that we can provide some support to the people,” Jonathan Veitch, the head of UNICEF in South Sudan, said.
Veitch said fighters from both the pro- and anti-government sides have taken over schools in Unity, Upper Nile, Lakes, Jonglei and Central Equatoria states, preventing around 120,000 children from using the schools for their intended purpose -- getting an education.
Even before the current conflict in South Sudan, education indicators in the young nation were among the world's worst, according to UNICEF.
"It is estimated that more than one million primary school aged children, mostly from rural areas, are not in school, while the few schools that do exist are not conducive to learning," the U.N. agency says on its website.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that seven in 10 children between the ages of six and 17 years of age had never set foot inside a classroom.
Colonel Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the South Sudan army, acknowledged that government forces are occupying some of the schools, but said they will soon leave.
But he said that, "In most of the cases... there are no children in the school" and the commanders "took the chance to use the school temporarily.”
An opposition spokesman did not respond to a request from South Sudan in Focus for commen
United Nations agencies are calling on the parties to the conflict in South Sudan to provide safe access to enable humanitarian assistance to reach vulnerable people, including 125,000 Sudanese refugees in Maban County, in Upper Nile state.
"There is still time to deliver stocks of food by road, with massive economies of scale, if safe access is guaranteed," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint news release.
"Without access by road, costly air operations will become the only recourse for providing urgently needed humanitarian assistance," they added.
The conflict between pro- and anti-Government forces in South Sudan, which began in mid-December 2013, is believed to have left thousands dead and forced tens of thousands to seek refuge at UN bases around the country. The fighting has continue unabated despite the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in January between the parties.
Continued insecurity and fighting along the supply routes have prevented WFP from carrying out regular delivery of critical food supplies to refugee camps in Maban Country. As a result, the agency and its partners have been forced to distribute reduced rations in March and April to refugees who depend largely on this food assistance for their survival.
The agencies warned that refugees are resorting to "negative coping mechanisms" such as selling off non-food items, and burning wood meant for building latrines to produce charcoal for sale. At the same time, there are "disturbing" reports that at least 200 refugees have returned to war-torn Blue Nile state in Sudan in search of food and other basic supplies.
"This could be the beginning of a worrying trend which we are powerless to prevent if the provision of food and other critical supplies continues to be erratic and inconsistent," said Cosmas Chanda, UNHCR Representative in South Sudan.
Underscoring the urgency of pre-positioning adequate food supplies for the coming six months, he added that roads to Maban are facing imminent closure for the duration of the rainy season, which has already started.
UNHCR is deeply concerned that increasing malnutrition rates among refugee children in all four camps are approaching the emergency threshold of 15 per cent. There are indications that in Doro camp acute malnutrition rates have soared in February and March.
WFP will this week distribute the last remaining food stocks in Maban County to refugees in the camps. These food rations will last the refugees less than a week, while WFP uses aircraft to bring additional food stocks to the camps within the next five days. More than 2,300 metric tons of food is needed each month to assist the Sudanese refugees and vulnerable host communities in Maban County.
"We have food supplies that could reach the refugee camps within days by road, but ongoing fighting along key supply routes is preventing us from delivering sufficient stocks into Maban County to assist refugees," said Mike Sackett, WFP's Country Director ad interim in South Sudan.
"We are prioritizing available planes and helicopters to deliver food to refugees and South Sudanese populations affected by the crisis. Ultimately, regaining road access to Maban County and to other communities isolated by conflict is critical to averting a humanitarian catastrophe in South Sudan."
Burmese migrants, illegal workers use boat to cross Moei River bordering town of Myawaddy, Burma, visible in the background, to Mae Sot, Thailand, March 21, 2012. Burmese migrants, illegal workers use boat to cross Moei River bordering town of Myawaddy, Burma, visible in the background, to Mae Sot, Thailand, March 21, 2012.
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June 03, 2014 3:25 PM MAE SOT, THAILAND — The coup in Thailand is causing problems for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from neighboring Cambodia and Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Along the Burmese border, workers say Thai security forces have shut down illegal crossing points, stranding many who cross back and forth for work in Thailand.
Without the ability to go home, those without proper work permits now have to stay on the Thai side longer than before and face the possibility of arrest.
Tuesday in Mae Sot, about 200 migrants were arrested by the Thai immigration and the police.
One migrant worker, who did not want to be named, told VOA's Burmese service that everyone who was taken away was in Thailand illegally.
Police came in early in the morning and arrested all people, including the children. They also came with soldiers and immigration officials. There were about 20 to 30 vehicles, including the police. About 200 adults and children were arrested. They all are undocumented people.”
"We started issuing [passports] at the border. We have also opened a branch in Bangkok. If there are complete documents, the Embassy in Bangkok will work to issue [the passports]."
Things are also difficult for Cambodian workers. Ya Navuth, executive director of Caram Cambodia, said undocumented workers in Thailand may not know about the closed borders and could be arrested when they try to cross back.
“Especially undocumented workers who have no knowledge of the issue,” he said. “When they travel at night, they could face arrest.”
Ya Navuth appealed to Cambodians considering traveling to Thailand for work to delay their plans. He urged the Cambodian Embassy in Thailand to continue to get information to the provinces, where Cambodian laborers work.
Cambodian Embassy in Thailand Councilor General Ros Serey recommends Cambodians in Thailand avoid traveling.
“There is no guideline from the ministry of foreign affairs, but whoever calls me or meets other diplomats, we normally advise them to remain calm, stay at one place, and refrain from committing anything against their laws to avoid problem.”
Migrant worker Oeun Samorn confirmed there are potential problems.
“I had some difficulties and have been very careful when traveling,” he said.
An estimated 400,000 Cambodians work in Thailand, while more than a million Burmese are believed to be working in the country.
Thailand’s military tightened the borders when it took control of the country last month.
FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop says all levels of the Australian government are working to tackle the threat of Australian jihadists returning home with "new-found abilities and talents in terrorism".
INSURGENT group Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS, is using online recruitment videos to entice Australians and Muslims in other parts of the world to join its fight in Syria and Iraq. US President Barack Obama says he is "deeply concerned" about the threat posed by returning jihadists.
"There is no doubt the problem in Syria is one that we have been paying a lot of attention to over the last couple of years as you see jihadists coming in from Europe and as far as Australia to get trained and then going back into their home countries," he told CNN.
Ms Bishop said the Australian government was aware Australians were heading to both Syria and Iraq to join up with jihadist groups, putting the number of those already involved in the fighting at 150.
"We are particularly concerned with the reports of Australians who are heading off not only to train, but to take leadership roles in radicalising others," she told ABC television on Sunday.
"The fear is they will come back to Australia with these new-found abilities and talents in terrorism."
Ms Bishop said the overseas insurgents' activities were being monitored and assessed all the time, and the government was "ever vigilant" to ensure Australians were kept safe from the threat posed by returning fighters.
All ministers, agencies and departments were involved in seeking to solve this problem, she said.
"We are doing what we can across government - it is a topic that is engaging the Australian government at every level," Ms Bishop said.
"Our National Security Committee is discussing this matter, and we are working out ways to ensure that Australians are safe from what I find to be a deeply disturbing development in our domestic security."
The government had already cancelled a number of passports, she said.
THE next generation of Audi's upmarket A6 saloon will offer an emergency driver assistance function which can stop the car if the driver falls ill at the wheel.
GERMANY'S Autobild motoring gazette reports that the system is designed to bring the car to a standstill at the side of the highway as quickly and safely as possible, with hazard lights switched on. The car then transmits an emergency call which automatically alerts rescue services.
The upcoming A6, which is slated for 2017, will also feature downsized two-litre, four-cylinder petrol engines rather than the larger motors currently fitted.
More powerful diesel variants will also be on the specification choice sheet.
THAILAND says it is disappointed with a decision by the US State Department to blacklist it for its failure to do enough to fight human trafficking.
BUT the southeast Asian country vowed it would continue to fight the scourge. The United States on Friday released its assessment of how governments around the world have performed in fighting the flesh trade and other forms of exploitative labour.
The report lowered Thailand to its lowest ranking, "tier 3". President Barack Obama has 90 days to determine whether to apply sanctions which could hurt Thailand's lucrative seafood and shrimp industries.
Sihasak Phuangketkeow, permanent secretary of Thailand's foreign affairs ministry, told reporters on Saturday in Bangkok that Thailand had stepped up its struggle to combat trafficking.
ReplyDeleteOscar Pistorius checks in to hospital for first of mental tests
Athlete arrives at psychiatric hospital in South Africa to begin the period of mental evaluation he was ordered to undergo by the judge at his murder trial
Oscar Pistorius, inset, talks on a mobile phone as he arrives at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria
Oscar Pistorius, inset, talks on a mobile phone as he arrives at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria Photo: AFP/GETTY
Reuters
1:50PM BST 26 May 2014
South African Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius checked in as a day patient to Pretoria's Weskoppies psychiatric hospital on Monday for the first day of a month of mental tests ordered by the judge overseeing his murder trial.
The 27-year-old track star, who faces life in prison if convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentine's Day last year, sped past a scrum of waiting television cameras in a car with tinted windows.
A heavy police contingent kept reporters from entering the grounds of the hospital, one of South Africa's foremost mental institutions.
Pistorius has denied murdering Steenkamp, saying he shot four times at a toilet door in his luxury Pretoria home to protect himself from what he thought was an intruder lurking behind it.
However, a defence forensic psychologist testified that Pistorius also had an anxiety disorder, leading judge Thokozile Masipa to send him for a mental evaluation to determine whether or not the condition affected his criminal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteOne person was killed and another was injured in a shooting incident at Cape Town's international airport on Wednesday, an official said.
The shooting happened in an airport restaurant on a mezzanine floor around 6pm (4pm GMT) and there was no disruption to flight operations.
News channel eNCA said on its website that police reported at least three other people were injured in the shooting in an airport restaurant on Wednesday. The news website carries a photograph of a man lying on the floor with blood around his head.
Police would not comment on media reports that a man shot his girlfriend in a domestic incident before turning the gun on himself.
"The shooter jumped over the Ocean Basket sushi bar and chased one of the ladies working at the back," News24 quoted witness William Scott as saying.
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01 Nov 2013
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16 Aug 2012
"She ran though the side door, just past where I was sitting, and the man following behind her pulled out his pistol.
"He stopped her right in front of the Ocean Basket entrance when he then shot her and followed to shoot himself in the head. Before I left the lady who was shot was still alive," he said.
South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world.
ReplyDeleteboko haram the dreaded nigerian terrorist group kills a northern emir and causes out cry from religious leaders in the northern part of nigeria
The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has moved 39 steps up in the latest Forbes list of Most Powerful Women in the World.
ReplyDeleteShe moved from last year's ranking of number 83 to 44. Malawian President, Joyce Banda and her Liberian counterpart, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Shirleaf, ranked 40 and 70 respectively as well as Mrs. Folorunsho Alakija (90) are other African women on the Forbes latest list of Most Powerful Women in the World.
In an addendum accompanying the list, Forbes said since Okonjo-Iweala's comeback as Nigeria's Finance Minister, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) had displayed a 6.8 per cent robust growth between 2012 and 2013, particularly given the relatively sluggish global recovery.
It stated that: "Okonjo-Iweala was key to developing the reform programmes that helped stabilise Nigeria's economy and improve governmental transparency," adding that "she has now turned her attention to Nigeria's 14 per cent unemployment rate."
In the newest Forbes ranking, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Janet Yellen, recently appointed the first woman to head the United States Federal Reserve Board (Central Bank) occupy the number one and two spots respectively.
Melinda Gates, President Dilma Roussef of Brazil, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama also featured prominently on the list. Okonjo-Iweala has continued to haul local and international honours and awards. In April alone, she emerged one of the three recipients of the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Awards.
She was also featured among the world's '100 Most Influential People' by the popular nigerian finance minister was 44th on forbes list. Time Magazine, in the 'Leaders Category' of the list, which she shared with Chinese President, Xi Jinping; Secretary of State, United States of America, John Kerry; Russian President, Vladmir Putin; Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, and Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe among others.
President Yoweri Museveni attended the grand finale rally for the National Resistance Movement woman flagbearer, Mrs. Rebecca Nalwanga, at Kalanga in Uganda last week. In condemning the Opposition in Uganda the President said, "some people have turned politics to a game of lies and un-seriousness". In his characteristic manner, President Museveni took advantage of the local campaign to launch an unwarranted attack on Nigeria.
ReplyDeleteIn criticising the handling of the War on Terror by the Jonathan Administration President Museveni boasted thus: "I have never invited the United Nations to guard our security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call in the UN ...I would rather hang myself. We prioritised national security by developing a strong army; otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children. It will be a vote of no confidence in our country and our citizens if we can't guarantee our security. What kind of persons would we be?"
SCHOOLCHILDREN in western Sweden received a surprise visit during their handicraft class when a moose jumped through the window.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher and a dozen teenagers fled the classroom on Monday to another part of the school and locked themselves into a room to escape the thrashing animal, which had wounded itself on the broken window.
Goteborg police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg told daily Aftonbladet that the young moose "was in a panic and so were the children and teacher".
Officers broke a window to let the schoolchildren out and later shot the wounded animal that couldn't find its way out of the school.
Except for the moose, no one was injured during the incident at the high school in Molndal, near the western city of Goteborg.
Doro Refugee Camp, South Sudan — Driven by hunger, hundreds of Sudanese refugees in South Sudan's Maban County have returned to Sudan's war-torn Blue Nile state in a desperate search for food.
ReplyDelete"The present food crisis is a product of the insecurity that has been hampering humanitarian operations in many parts of the country," said Cosmas Chanda, UNHCR Representative in South Sudan, adding that up to 2,000 people had gone back across the border from camps affected by food shortages in Maban because of difficulty for UNHCR and its partners in moving aid in amid the current insecurity.
Chanda said he was concerned that the right of asylum would have little meaning if refugees had no food. "We are hopeful that the peace deal signed [on May 9] by President [Salva Kiir] and the leader of the opposition [Riek Machar] will make it possible to rapidly deliver adequate volumes of food by road to refugees and other vulnerable populations in Maban," he added.
In an interview this week with the BBC, President Kiir warned that South Sudan faced one of the "worst famines ever" unless the conflict, which has displaced hundreds of thousands, is ended. The 125,000 refugees in Maban County had fled to South Sudan to escape fighting in Sudan.
Refugees in Maban, like Momen Bashir, are resorting to desperate measures to find food, including forays into Sudan where the Sudanese armed forces continue to fight the rebel SPLM-North. Bashir recently travelled from Doro Refugee Camp to Yabus in the far south of Blue Nile state in the hope of finding employment to earn enough money to feed his family.
"Three days after I arrived in Yabus a bomb exploded," Bashir recalled, adding that he immediately fled back to South Sudan. "I risked my life. Yet I made only 20 [Sudanese] pounds, enough to buy a kilo of flour and a packet of salt."
With aid agencies unable to provide adequate quantities of food, the 30-year-old Bashir said he had felt that, as head of the household, he had to do something to help his family, including his wife, seven children, elderly mother and three aunts.
"As a man, it is my duty to feed my family," he stressed. "People are suffering. If you walk around the camp, you see they are becoming thinner and weaker," Bashir said, telling of a young mother whose weak and hungry child had died while she was out working as a water carrier for a restaurant in the camp.
Bashir's own young children stopped going to school some weeks ago. "I would walk them to school, and within the hour they would return home, unable to cope with learning on an empty stomach," he said, adding wistfully: "I did not have the heart to send them back. They are too young."
The young man said he was embarrassed that his 60-year old mother should spend her days weaving dried grass into mats, to sell at the market. He had hoped that his trip to Yabus would provide a solution, but now he is back where he started.
"We recognize the refugees' predicament," said Adan Ilmi, UNHCR's head of office in Maban County. "They depend largely on food assistance for their survival. We are leaving no stone unturned in the effort to bring food to Maban, including expanding the airstrip for C-130 aircraft to land."
UNHCR is also engaging the refugee leadership to discourage cross-border movements. "There is a constant risk of direct or indirect attack in Blue Nile state," Ilmi said, "and the threat of recruitment by fighting forces, including of children and youth, is ever present."
UBA — United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) officials said Tuesday that men in uniform are occupying at least 30 schools in five different states in South Sudan, interrupting the education of tens of thousands of children whose lives have already been disrupted by six months of conflict.
ReplyDelete“We appeal to the Ministry of Defense and the leaders of the armed forces on both sides to make sure that they don’t use schools, hospitals or any places where we urgently need social services, that they leave these places alone, such that we can provide some support to the people,” Jonathan Veitch, the head of UNICEF in South Sudan, said.
Veitch said fighters from both the pro- and anti-government sides have taken over schools in Unity, Upper Nile, Lakes, Jonglei and Central Equatoria states, preventing around 120,000 children from using the schools for their intended purpose -- getting an education.
Even before the current conflict in South Sudan, education indicators in the young nation were among the world's worst, according to UNICEF.
"It is estimated that more than one million primary school aged children, mostly from rural areas, are not in school, while the few schools that do exist are not conducive to learning," the U.N. agency says on its website.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that seven in 10 children between the ages of six and 17 years of age had never set foot inside a classroom.
Colonel Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the South Sudan army, acknowledged that government forces are occupying some of the schools, but said they will soon leave.
But he said that, "In most of the cases... there are no children in the school" and the commanders "took the chance to use the school temporarily.”
An opposition spokesman did not respond to a request from South Sudan in Focus for commen
United Nations agencies are calling on the parties to the conflict in South Sudan to provide safe access to enable humanitarian assistance to reach vulnerable people, including 125,000 Sudanese refugees in Maban County, in Upper Nile state.
ReplyDelete"There is still time to deliver stocks of food by road, with massive economies of scale, if safe access is guaranteed," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint news release.
"Without access by road, costly air operations will become the only recourse for providing urgently needed humanitarian assistance," they added.
The conflict between pro- and anti-Government forces in South Sudan, which began in mid-December 2013, is believed to have left thousands dead and forced tens of thousands to seek refuge at UN bases around the country. The fighting has continue unabated despite the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in January between the parties.
Continued insecurity and fighting along the supply routes have prevented WFP from carrying out regular delivery of critical food supplies to refugee camps in Maban Country. As a result, the agency and its partners have been forced to distribute reduced rations in March and April to refugees who depend largely on this food assistance for their survival.
The agencies warned that refugees are resorting to "negative coping mechanisms" such as selling off non-food items, and burning wood meant for building latrines to produce charcoal for sale. At the same time, there are "disturbing" reports that at least 200 refugees have returned to war-torn Blue Nile state in Sudan in search of food and other basic supplies.
"This could be the beginning of a worrying trend which we are powerless to prevent if the provision of food and other critical supplies continues to be erratic and inconsistent," said Cosmas Chanda, UNHCR Representative in South Sudan.
Underscoring the urgency of pre-positioning adequate food supplies for the coming six months, he added that roads to Maban are facing imminent closure for the duration of the rainy season, which has already started.
UNHCR is deeply concerned that increasing malnutrition rates among refugee children in all four camps are approaching the emergency threshold of 15 per cent. There are indications that in Doro camp acute malnutrition rates have soared in February and March.
WFP will this week distribute the last remaining food stocks in Maban County to refugees in the camps. These food rations will last the refugees less than a week, while WFP uses aircraft to bring additional food stocks to the camps within the next five days. More than 2,300 metric tons of food is needed each month to assist the Sudanese refugees and vulnerable host communities in Maban County.
"We have food supplies that could reach the refugee camps within days by road, but ongoing fighting along key supply routes is preventing us from delivering sufficient stocks into Maban County to assist refugees," said Mike Sackett, WFP's Country Director ad interim in South Sudan.
"We are prioritizing available planes and helicopters to deliver food to refugees and South Sudanese populations affected by the crisis. Ultimately, regaining road access to Maban County and to other communities isolated by conflict is critical to averting a humanitarian catastrophe in South Sudan."
Burmese migrants, illegal workers use boat to cross Moei River bordering town of Myawaddy, Burma, visible in the background, to Mae Sot, Thailand, March 21, 2012.
ReplyDeleteBurmese migrants, illegal workers use boat to cross Moei River bordering town of Myawaddy, Burma, visible in the background, to Mae Sot, Thailand, March 21, 2012.
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Kimseng Men, Aye Aye Mar
June 03, 2014 3:25 PM
MAE SOT, THAILAND — The coup in Thailand is causing problems for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from neighboring Cambodia and Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Along the Burmese border, workers say Thai security forces have shut down illegal crossing points, stranding many who cross back and forth for work in Thailand.
Without the ability to go home, those without proper work permits now have to stay on the Thai side longer than before and face the possibility of arrest.
Tuesday in Mae Sot, about 200 migrants were arrested by the Thai immigration and the police.
One migrant worker, who did not want to be named, told VOA's Burmese service that everyone who was taken away was in Thailand illegally.
Police came in early in the morning and arrested all people, including the children. They also came with soldiers and immigration officials. There were about 20 to 30 vehicles, including the police. About 200 adults and children were arrested. They all are undocumented people.”
Meanwhile, the Labor Attaché at the Burmese Embassy in Thailand, Thein Naing, told VOA the visa extension process has resumed for legal Burmese migrants.
"We started issuing [passports] at the border. We have also opened a branch in Bangkok. If there are complete documents, the Embassy in Bangkok will work to issue [the passports]."
Things are also difficult for Cambodian workers. Ya Navuth, executive director of Caram Cambodia, said undocumented workers in Thailand may not know about the closed borders and could be arrested when they try to cross back.
“Especially undocumented workers who have no knowledge of the issue,” he said. “When they travel at night, they could face arrest.”
Ya Navuth appealed to Cambodians considering traveling to Thailand for work to delay their plans. He urged the Cambodian Embassy in Thailand to continue to get information to the provinces, where Cambodian laborers work.
Cambodian Embassy in Thailand Councilor General Ros Serey recommends Cambodians in Thailand avoid traveling.
“There is no guideline from the ministry of foreign affairs, but whoever calls me or meets other diplomats, we normally advise them to remain calm, stay at one place, and refrain from committing anything against their laws to avoid problem.”
Migrant worker Oeun Samorn confirmed there are potential problems.
“I had some difficulties and have been very careful when traveling,” he said.
An estimated 400,000 Cambodians work in Thailand, while more than a million Burmese are believed to be working in the country.
Thailand’s military tightened the borders when it took control of the country last month.
FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop says all levels of the Australian government are working to tackle the threat of Australian jihadists returning home with "new-found abilities and talents in terrorism".
ReplyDeleteINSURGENT group Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS, is using online recruitment videos to entice Australians and Muslims in other parts of the world to join its fight in Syria and Iraq.
US President Barack Obama says he is "deeply concerned" about the threat posed by returning jihadists.
"There is no doubt the problem in Syria is one that we have been paying a lot of attention to over the last couple of years as you see jihadists coming in from Europe and as far as Australia to get trained and then going back into their home countries," he told CNN.
Ms Bishop said the Australian government was aware Australians were heading to both Syria and Iraq to join up with jihadist groups, putting the number of those already involved in the fighting at 150.
"We are particularly concerned with the reports of Australians who are heading off not only to train, but to take leadership roles in radicalising others," she told ABC television on Sunday.
"The fear is they will come back to Australia with these new-found abilities and talents in terrorism."
Ms Bishop said the overseas insurgents' activities were being monitored and assessed all the time, and the government was "ever vigilant" to ensure Australians were kept safe from the threat posed by returning fighters.
All ministers, agencies and departments were involved in seeking to solve this problem, she said.
"We are doing what we can across government - it is a topic that is engaging the Australian government at every level," Ms Bishop said.
"Our National Security Committee is discussing this matter, and we are working out ways to ensure that Australians are safe from what I find to be a deeply disturbing development in our domestic security."
The government had already cancelled a number of passports, she said.
THE next generation of Audi's upmarket A6 saloon will offer an emergency driver assistance function which can stop the car if the driver falls ill at the wheel.
ReplyDeleteGERMANY'S Autobild motoring gazette reports that the system is designed to bring the car to a standstill at the side of the highway as quickly and safely as possible, with hazard lights switched on.
The car then transmits an emergency call which automatically alerts rescue services.
The upcoming A6, which is slated for 2017, will also feature downsized two-litre, four-cylinder petrol engines rather than the larger motors currently fitted.
More powerful diesel variants will also be on the specification choice sheet.
THAILAND says it is disappointed with a decision by the US State Department to blacklist it for its failure to do enough to fight human trafficking.
ReplyDeleteBUT the southeast Asian country vowed it would continue to fight the scourge.
The United States on Friday released its assessment of how governments around the world have performed in fighting the flesh trade and other forms of exploitative labour.
The report lowered Thailand to its lowest ranking, "tier 3". President Barack Obama has 90 days to determine whether to apply sanctions which could hurt Thailand's lucrative seafood and shrimp industries.
Sihasak Phuangketkeow, permanent secretary of Thailand's foreign affairs ministry, told reporters on Saturday in Bangkok that Thailand had stepped up its struggle to combat trafficking.