tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23030856213143760872024-02-18T20:34:48.749-08:00Men of the Global South<center>This blog supplements my edited volume, <b><a href="http://amzn.to/dgYtnr">"Men of the Global South: A Reader"</a></b> (Zed Books). It presents up-to-date media coverage of events, issues, and phenomena pertinent to the study of men and masculinities in the developing world, with an emphasis on personal profiles and portraits. Please send all suggestions for posts to <a href="mailto:adamj_jones@hotmail.com">adamj_jones@hotmail.com</a>.</center>Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-12325912199956400292013-12-24T16:32:00.000-08:002013-12-24T17:12:27.129-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (South Sudan)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"A young cattle herder from the Dinka tribe carries his AK 47 rifle near Rumbek, capital of the Lakes State in central South Sudan." (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/south-sudan-state-that-fell-apart-in-a-week"><b>South Sudan: The State That Fell Apart in a Week</b></a></div>
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By Daniel Howden</div>
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The Guardian, December 23, 2013</div>
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"A week ago, Simon K, a 20-year-old student living in the capital of South Sudan, was arrested by men in military uniforms. He was asked a question that has taken on deadly importance in the world's newest country in the past seven days: incholdi -- 'What is your name?' in Dinka, the language of the country's president and its largest ethnic group. Those who, like Simon, were unable to answer, risked being identified as Nuer, the ethnic group of the former vice-president now leading the armed opposition and facing the brunt of what insiders are describing as the world's newest civil war. Simon K was taken to a police station in the Gudele market district of Juba, where he was marched past several dead bodies and locked in a room with other young men, all Nuer. 'We counted ourselves and found we were 252,' he told the Guardian. 'Then they put guns in through the windows and started to shoot us.' The massacre continued for two days with soldiers returning at intervals to shoot again if they saw any sign of life. Simon was one of 12 men to survive the assault by covering themselves in the bodies of the dead and dying. Simon spoke from inside the UN compound that has become an emergency sanctuary to the remaining Nuer in the capital. Sitting on a filthy mattress by the side of a dirt road, with bandages covering bullet wounds in his stomach and legs, he recalled: 'It was horrible, because to survive I had to cover myself with the bodies of dead people, and during the two days, the bodies started to smell really bad.' In the space of seven desperate days, the UN base has been transformed from a logistics hub for an aid operation into a squalid sanctuary for more than 10,000 people. Amid the confusion of bodies and belongings, a handmade sign hangs from the rolls of razor wire. 'The lord is our best defender,' it reads. But there is no sign here of the lord's defence, as the country that gained independence in 2011 with huge international fanfare and support has come apart in the space of a week. <br />
<a name='more'></a>The latest violence began after a fight between Dinka and Nuer soldiers in the presidential guard on 15 December, igniting a simmering political power struggle in South Sudan's ruling party and sparking widespread ethnic killings. ... The fighting has already claimed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of civilian lives. Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have fled into the bush or returned to home villages, according to the UN. The official death toll of 500, which corresponds with the number of dead in a single Juba hospital six days ago, is being dismissed by experts. A veteran aid worker, who has been assessing the scale and nature of the killings from sources nationwide, said the real figure was 'in the tens of thousands'. ... In Juba, Gatwech T remembers how, last Tuesday, he ran for his life when soldiers attacked his home area of Hai Referendum. Some of the men outran the younger ones, who were caught by men in uniform. 'They caught the boys and I stopped to watch. They counted them and there were 21 boys, as young as him," he said, pointing at a 15-year-old. "They tied their hands behind their backs and killed them.' Yien K, 28, was at home last Monday evening at around 10pm in the Jabarona area on the outskirts of the capital when he heard shooting. As it came closer he decided to hide at his brother's home. There were five of them inside the simple structure: his brother, his brother's wife, one-year-old niece and another six-year-old girl, a cousin. Yien recalls the moment just after midnight when the tracks of a tank ripped through the walls and crushed the one-year-old. 'The tanks came and ran over the house,' he said. 'The men escaped but the woman and girls were killed.' Unlike some of Juba's neighbourhoods, which have divided along ethnic lines, Jabarona is a mixed area and Yien believes the tank operators had guides showing them where Nuer people were living. In neighbourhoods such as Mangaten, Hai Referendum, Area 107 and Eden City, it is now easy to tell where the Nuer community lived. Halfway down the main market street of Mangaten, a dust-blown complex of tin-shack shops and rickety stalls, the bustle and activity stops. Most businesses have been ransacked, their rough shelves stripped of everything; stalls have been burned to the ground. ... Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the civil war guerrilla force that is now the national army, denied any orchestrated attacks had taken place. He said he was unaware of the slaughter at Mangaten police station and blamed any deaths on 'criminal elements' who had exploited the chance to loot and kill afforded by the crisis. ... But this description of rogue elements does not tally with the account of Riek W, who was until Saturday a serving member of the presidential guard, known to Jubans as the 'Tigers'. A three-year veteran of the multi-ethnic unit that was meant to bind the diverse communities of what had been southern Sudan, he was not openly known as a Nuer to many of his colleagues and does not bear the traditional 'Gaar' scarring that many Nuer men have on their faces. Now in hiding in the UN base, he described how fighting between Dinka and Nuer members of the Tigers last Sunday night had spilled over into attacks on civilian Nuers all over the city. 'They took people who were not soldiers and tied their hands and shot them. I saw this with my own eyes, I was there wearing the same uniform as them.' Young men from the Dinka community, many of them with no military training, were given uniforms and guns from various armouries around the capital, including one located at President Kiir's own compound, known as J1, he says. 'It is soldiers who are doing this and militia from Dinka boys who have been given guns from the Tigers,' he said. Riek W said that his Dinka colleagues could not act without the authority of their commander and that they were 'the same soldiers that are killing people at night'. Riek W, who decided to abandon his post in the president's compound at the weekend as he feared for his life and was horrified at the murder of civilians, said that the scale of the killings was being covered up. 'They… are using the curfew to remove the bodies,' he said. He described how he had seen 'large trucks' full of bodies, some of which were taken to grave sites dug with bulldozers, while others had been dumped in the river Nile at two points: one near the Bilpam barracks and one at Juba bridge. These reports have been corroborated by fishermen who have seen the bodies up on the river bank. 'The numbers they are saying are completely wrong, people have been killed everywhere,' Riek W said. The Nuer who have survived in Juba, numbering 20,000, are now crammed into the city's two UN bases. Their fate is matched by another 14,000 civilians from other ethnic groups sheltering with the UN in South Sudan's other main towns. Many of the Nuer crowded into the main UN mission base in Juba said they were sure the peacekeepers would protect them despite the evacuation over the weekend of all non-critical UN staff. Not everyone feels safe, though. Wearing a dusty pinstriped suit jacket and apologising for not having showered in six days, 51-year-old Peter Bey was unsure. He has watched in recent days as one evacuation flight after another has taken foreign nationals to safety from the airport on the other side of the fence. 'We see from history that the UN has left people behind before in Rwanda,' he said. 'They put their own people on helicopters and left the people who died.'"<br />
<i>[n.b. Thanks to David Buchanan for bringing this source to my attention.]</i></div>
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Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-11011291728135680702013-12-17T06:53:00.001-08:002013-12-17T06:54:07.708-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Lebanon)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Lebanese army soldiers on their armored vehicles patrol the streets of Bab al-Tabbaneh in Tripoli, Lebanon. The country decided last week to put the northern port city under the direct command of the Lebanese army in a bid to contain clashes linked to the war raging in Syria." (Adel Karroum/EPA)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/dragged-off-the-bus-in-tripoli-and-shot-the-latest-spillover-from-syrias-brutal-civil-war/2013/12/17/287d586e-64c7-11e3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html"><b>Dragged off the Bus in Tripoli and Shot: The Latest Spillover from Syria's Brutal Civil War</b></a><br />
By Loveday Morris<br />
Washington Post, December 16, 2013<br />
"One man was dragged from his taxi. Eight others were ordered off a bus on their way home from work. The victims were shot in the legs by masked gunmen, a brutal tactic that officials say has been used on dozens of members of Tripoli's minority Alawite community in recent months. The intimidation campaign is the latest spillover from neighboring Syria's long-running civil war, which has been recreated in microcosm in this impoverished port city, Lebanon's second-largest. Alawite residents of the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood who back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a fellow Alawite, have frequently clashed with Sunni residents of nearby Bab al-Tabbaneh, who support the Syrian rebels. In August, two Sunni mosques were bombed, killing more than 40 people; Alawite leader Ali Eid was charged with aiding one of the suspects. A few days after the bombings, taxi driver Ali Assi, another Alawite, became the first targeted shooting victim. Assi was driving in Bab al-Tabbaneh when his vehicle was stopped by gunmen. He wouldn't normally consider it safe to drive through the Sunni neighborhood, he said, but it was early in the morning, and he thought the risk was minimal. 'They started beating me and telling me the Alawites shouldn’t be in Lebanon,' Assi said. 'They put me in the back of the car.' He was driven to an open patch of land by a nearby traffic circle and released. When he started to run, the gunmen opened fire. Assi took 13 bullets in the legs and lower back. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Rifaat Eid, Ali Eid's son and the political chief of the Alawite Arab Democratic Party, said 38 Alawites have been attacked since the mosque bombings. Many were pulled from their vehicles on the way to or from work. The number was confirmed by a senior Lebanese security official, who said at least 25 of the victims were intentionally shot in the legs. The shootings, reminiscent of 'kneecapping' tactics once used by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland and Italy, have created a siege mentality within the Alawite community, with increasing numbers of men afraid to leave their neighborhood. 'We were coming back from work in Beirut and they stopped our bus,' recalled Ali Mazloum, one of the eight men targeted in a single incident last month. 'They knew we were from Jabal Mohsen. They told us to get down off the bus and then they started shooting at us. As each one came off, they shot him with a pistol in the legs.' With a bone shattered and one of his legs pinned inside a metal cage for a year, Mazloum, 38, is unable to return to his job in a fast-food chicken restaurant. He doesn’t know whether he will walk again. He sees the attack as part of a concerted campaign to permanently disable men of fighting age, so they can't participate in clashes or work. Several arrests have been made in connection with the shooting, but Mazloum complains that the process has been slow. 'It's part of a siege on the area,' said Mazloum. 'Fifty percent used to go out and work outside. Now, of course, they are scared.' [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-60738159416639659182013-09-25T10:50:00.000-07:002013-09-25T10:50:28.691-07:00WORK / GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (China)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Journalists watch pre-recorded testimony by Gu Kailai, the wife of former Chinese politician Bo Xilai, at a hotel in Jinan, China." (Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-china-execution-internet-outcry-20130925,0,4390928.story"><b>Execution of Chinese Street Vendor Sparks Internet Outcry</b></a><br />
By Barbara Demick<br />
The Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2013<br />
"Millions of Chinese took to the Internet to protest the execution of a 37-year-old vendor who had stabbed to death two municipal officials he said arrested and beat him for hawking meat skewers without a license. Xia Junfeng had argued that he was a poor, honest man who was only defending himself against the notoriously brutal urban management officers known in China as the chengguan -- and nearly 3 million Chinese agreed. As news of his execution by lethal injection was announced Wednesday, Chinese microblogs were flooded with outrage. On one popular site alone, Sina.com, Xia's name was the most searched of the day, and 2.8 million people posted messages, almost all supporting him. Many contrasted his case to that of ex-Politburo member Bo Xilai's wife, Gu Kailai, a lawyer by profession, who was convicted last year of premeditated murder for poisoning a British businessman. She was given a suspended death sentence, the equivalent of life in prison. 'Gu Kailai was a member of the privileged class who knew what crime she was committing,' wrote one outraged critic in a comment later expunged by censors. 'Xia Junfeng was struggling at the bottom of society to survive. His death is an injustice. There is only tyranny.' 'Hero Xia, rest in peace. Your anti-repression spirit will continue to inspire the repressed. Your name will live in history,' wrote another. Xia's wife said she and her mother-in-law were given 30 minutes notice Wednesday morning that they would be allowed a brief visit with the condemned man before the execution. 'He was calm. He didn't cry. He just kept telling us that he was defending himself,' Zhang Jing said in a telephone interview Wednesday. <br />
<a name='more'></a>'I feel in a very confused state right now. Very bad,' Zhang said. 'My mother-in-law is worse. She was crying and screaming and banging her head against the floor.' Xia was selling skewered sausages and chicken from a tricycle outside a market in the northeastern city of Shenyang in May 2009 when the two municipal officers confiscated his cooking equipment. They brought him back to an interrogation room without realizing he still had a cooking knife in his pocket. There, Xia told the court during his trial, an officer assaulted him. 'He began to beat me as soon as I entered the room, his fists pounding my head and ears,' Xia said. 'As I tried to run outside, I came face to face with [another officer]. Right away, he grabbed my collar to stop me. He also struck me with his fist ... and kicked at my thighs.' Xia said he put his hand down to protect his groin and then 'my hand came in contact with my knife.' The killing in Shenyang catapulted Xia to national celebrity, with many Chinese viewing him as a symbol of resistance. After his arrest, his wife became an activist, publicizing the case over her own microblog. The family’s fame was spread in part by their now-12-year-old son, Xia Jianqiang, a prize-winning artist whose paintings of his father have been widely viewed on the Internet. The family has said that Xia had been operating the unlicensed food cart in hopes of raising money for the boy to attend art school in Beijing. After three years of appeals that went up to China's supreme court, Xia's defense was rejected. The Shenyang province intermediate court, which had handled the original case, released a statement Tuesday saying the defendant committed 'intentional homicide.' 'The crime he committed was heinous. The method he used was extremely cruel, and the results serious. He should be punished to the full extent of the law,' the court wrote. The chengguan are widely despised in China for their brutality. Every year, there are fresh headlines about incidents in which street vendors and pedicab drivers are beaten to death. Xia's lawyers documented 16 such deaths going back to 2001. They said one of the officers killed by Xia had a record of abuse and had the year before broken the arm of a woman selling umbrellas without a license, according to court filings. China executes more people each year than all other countries in the world combined, about 3,000 in 2012, according to the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights organization. But the number is down significantly from a decade ago, when it was estimated at 12,000 per year. 'China has committed itself to reducing the number of executions. One hopes that a case like this one is one that will get more people questioning the death penalty,' said John Kamm, Dui Hua's founder."<br />
<i>[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]</i></div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-121889463533897382013-09-22T19:20:00.001-07:002013-09-22T19:20:28.512-07:00WORK (Qatar)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Fans take their seats before 2009's Brazil v England friendly in Doha, Qatar." (Owen Humphreys/PA Archive/Press Association Images)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/qatar-human-rights-sport-cohen"><b>How Many More Must Die for Qatar's World Cup?</b></a><br />
By Nick Cohen<br />
The Observer, September 21, 2013<br />
"With the European football association, Uefa, reaching the unavoidable conclusion that you cannot play competitive sport in the 50C heat of a Qatari summer, the way is clear for the international football association, Fifa, to break with precedent and make a decision that does not seem corrupt or senseless or both. All being well, the 2022 tournament will be held in the winter. Just one niggling question remains: how many lives will be lost so that the Fifa World Cup™ can live up to its boast that it is the most successful festival of sport on the planet. 'More workers will die building World Cup infrastructure than players will take to the field,' predicts Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. Even if the teams in Qatar use all their substitutes, she is likely to be right. Qatar's absolute monarchy, run by the fabulously rich and extraordinarily secretive Al Thani clan, no more keeps health and safety statistics than it allows free elections. The Trade Union Confederation has had to count the corpses the hard way. It found that 83 Indians have died so far this year. The Gulf statelet was also the graveyard for 119 Nepalese construction workers. With 202 migrants from other countries dying over the same nine months, Ms Burrow is able to say with confidence there is at least one death for every day of the year. The body count can only rise now that Qatar has announced that it will take on 500,000 more migrants, mainly from the Indian subcontinent, to build the stadiums, hotels and roads for 2022. Not all the fatalities are on construction sites. The combination of back-breaking work, nonexistent legal protections, intense heat and labour camps without air conditioning allows death to come in many guises. <br />
<a name='more'></a>To give you a taste of its variety, the friends of Chirari Mahato went online to describe how he would work from 6am to 7pm. He would return to a hot, unventilated room he shared with 12 others. Because he died in his sleep, rather than on site, his employers would not accept that they had worked him to death. There are millions of workers like him around the Gulf. When we gawp at the wealth that allows the Qatari royals to buy the Olympic Village and Chelsea Barracks, we miss their plight, and the strangeness of the oil rich states, too. How to characterise them? 'Absolute monarchy' does not begin to capture a society such as Qatar, where migrants make up 99% of the private sector workforce. Apartheid South Africa is a useful point of reference. The 225,000 Qatari citizens can form trade unions and strike. The roughly 1.8 million migrants cannot. Sparta also comes to mind. But instead of a warrior elite living off the labour of helots, we have plutocrats and sybarites sustained by faceless armies of disposable migrants. The official justification for oppression is, as so often, religious. Migrants and employers are bound by the kafala system -- taken from Islamic law on the adoption of children. 'Kafala' derives from 'to feed'. Nourishment is the last thing the system provides, however. It delivers captive labour instead. Migrant workers cannot change jobs without their sponsoring employers' consent. As Human Rights Watch says, if workers walk out, the employers -- the adoptive parents -- can say they have absconded and the authorities will arrest them. In order to leave Qatar, migrants must obtain an exit visa from their sponsor. This stipulation means that they can be held hostage if they threaten to sue over a breach of contract. Wouldn't it make a bracing change if the religious leaders we hear condemning free speech as blasphemy so often could find the time to damn this exploitation? It is not just poor construction workers who suffer. One might expect that Fifa would have been concerned about the fate of foreign footballers working under kafala contracts. Abdeslam Ouaddou, who once played for Fulham, has warned players not to go near Qatar. Speaking from experience -- he played for Qatar SC in the Qatari domestic league -- he said that if a player is injured or his form drops, the club can break his contract. If the player goes to lawyers, the club (as 'sponsor') can refuse to let him leave the country until he drops his case. Ouaddou got out of Qatar after much tortuous negotiation. But French player Zahir Belounis, a former captain of the team Al-Jaish, is trapped in the country with his family and hasn't been paid for two years. When he went to the international press, he was threatened with defamation proceedings. After promising the International Trade Union Confederation that it would ensure human rights were respected in Qatar, Fifa tells me that it is 'promoting a dialogue' to ensure dignified working conditions. Sharan Burrow's colleagues say all they hear is PR flam. It is not just Qatar in 2022. The corruption and waste around the 2014 World Cup has provoked riots in Brazil. As for 2018, Putin's Duma has already restricted the rights of workers preparing the stadiums for the World Cup. Fifa strikes me as a decadent organisation in the political rather than literary meaning of the word. It is an institution whose behaviour contradicts all of its professed purposes. If it cared about football, it would not even have thought of staging a tournament in the Qatari summer. If it cared about footballers, it would take up the case of Belounis. And if it respected human life, it would say that the kafala system could not govern World Cup contracts. I don't know how much longer sports journalists can ignore the abuse Fifa tolerates. The World Cup is overturning all the cliches. People say that 'football is a matter of life or death', said Bill Shankly. 'It's more important than that.' Shankly was joking. Qatar and Fifa appear to mean it. Sport is 'war minus the shooting', said Orwell. There may not be any actual shooting in Qatar but workers will die nonetheless. The quote that ought to haunt all who love football is CLR James's paraphrase of Kipling: 'What do they know of cricket that only cricket know?' James was writing about how sport was bound up in the Caribbean with colonialism, race and class. Anyone writing about the World Cup must also acknowledge that the beautiful game is now bound up with racial privilege, exploitation and the deaths of men, who should not be forgotten so readily."<br />
<i>[n.b. This is the complete text of the dispatch.]</i></div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-55454243996659667792013-08-24T19:25:00.001-07:002013-08-24T19:25:22.448-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/as-syrian-rebels-losses-mount-teenagers-begin-filling-ranks/2013/08/24/2bdbdfea-0a8f-11e3-9941-6711ed662e71_story.html">As Syrian Rebels' Losses Mount, Teenagers Begin Filling Ranks</a></b><br />
By Taylor Luck<br />
The Washington Post, August 24, 2013<br />
"Just 16 years old, Mohammed Hamad was heading to war. The lanky Syrian teenager was joining what United Nations officials warn might be the start of a flood of underage fighters enlisting in rebel ranks. About half of the 200 new recruits who board buses each week to Syria from Jordan's sprawling Zaatari refugee camp are under 18, UN officials at the camp estimate. Hamad said it was his duty to 'fight in the name of God to take back the country' from government forces. 'If my generation doesn't take up arms, the revolution will be lost,' he said, shortly before boarding a bus for the border on a three-day journey to join rebel forces on the outskirts of his home village in southern Syria. The flow of fresh troops has helped the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army replenish ranks rapidly diminished by a series of recent losses. But it also has prompted unease from UN officials, who in an internal report this month warned of growing 'recruitment by armed groups, including of under-aged refugees' in Zaatari and across the region, indicating that the rebels may no longer be honoring a pledge to bar fighters younger than 17. 'We are concerned by reports that some groups may be attempting to use Zaatari as a recruitment center, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure it stays a refugee camp and not a military camp,' Andrew Harper, the UN refugee agency's representative in Jordan, said in an interview. After more than two years of conflict that has already claimed more than 100,000 lives, some rebel commanders defend the use of teenage fighters as inevitable. <br />
<a name='more'></a>'Many of these young men's fathers and older brothers have died before them,' said Abu Diyaa al-Hourani, commander of a Free Syrian Army battalion outside the Syrian border town of Sheikh al-Maskin. He said that Syrians as young as 15 serve in his 800-man unit, whose average age has plunged to 19, down from 25 not long ago. 'It is only natural for the next generation to carry on the fight,' he said. Conscription in the Syrian army is compulsory for all males once they reach the age of 18, according to the military. At the camp, rebel officials say that theirs remains an all-volunteer force and that prospective recruits are carefully vetted. But the officials acknowledged that verifying birth dates may be all but impossible in camps where few refugees have access to birth documents. 'At the end of the day, if they can carry a gun and are willing to fight, who are we to say they can't?' said Ayman al-Hariri, a member of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella opposition group, who coordinates repatriation from Zaatari, home to more than 100,000 Syrians. [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-17092432444346951552013-06-28T00:15:00.002-07:002013-06-28T00:15:36.050-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Syrian youths walk amongst the rubble in the village of al-Hamidiyeh, north of Qusayr, in Homs province."</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-return-to-homs-the-atmosphere-here-is-poisoned-by-fear-of-a-kind-i-have-only-ever-seen-once-before-8677413.html"><b>A Return to Homs</b></a><br />
By Patrick Cockburn<br />
The Independent, June 28, 2013<br />
"Khalid is too frightened of travelling the 100 miles from Homs to Damascus to ask officials if they know what happened to his three sons, who disappeared 16 months ago as government troops over-ran the rebel stronghold of Baba Amr. He has not heard anything from them since and does not know if they are alive or dead, though he has repeatedly asked the authorities in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, about them. Khalid, a thick-set man of 60 with grizzled white hair -- who used to be a construction worker until he injured his back -- says he dare not make the journey to Damascus because 'as soon as the soldiers at the checkpoints on the road see I come from a place like Baba Amr, with a reputation for supporting the rebels, they are likely to arrest me'. He explains that he cannot risk being detained because he has a wife and four daughters who rely on him. He is the last man left in his family since his sons went missing. Syria is full of parents trying to keep their children alive or simply seeking to find out if they are already dead. It is as if both sides in the civil war are in a competition to see who can commit the worst atrocities. A few days before I spoke to Khalid I saw a picture on the internet of a fresh-faced 23-year-old soldier called Youssef Kais Abdin from near the port city of Latakia. He had been kidnapped a week earlier by the al Qa'ida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra while serving in the north-east of Syria, close to the Iraqi border. The next his parents heard of Youssef was a call from their son’s mobile at 4am from al-Nusra telling them to look for a picture of their son online. When they did so, they saw his decapitated body in a pool of blood with his severed head placed on top of it. The Syrian conflict is a civil war with all the horrors traditionally inflicted in such struggles wherever they are fought, be it Syria today or Russia, Spain, Greece, Lebanon or Iraq in the past. For the newly appointed American National Security Adviser Susan Rice, David Cameron or William Hague to pretend that this is a simple battle between a dictatorial government and an oppressed people is to misrepresent or misunderstand what is happening on the ground. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Evidence that both sides have committed supporters prepared to fight to the death is borne out by the estimate of some 100,000 dead published this week by the pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It concludes that fatal casualties come almost equally from the two sides in the civil war: broadly 25,000 of them government soldiers, 17,000 pro-government militia, 36,000 civilians and 14,000 rebel fighters, though the last two figures in particular are probably understated. Homs, an ancient city at the centre of a province with a population of two million, is a good place to judge the course of the war. It was an early scene of anti-government action in 2011 in the course of which peaceful protests turned into irregular but devastating warfare. Most of Homs today is controlled by the Syrian army, aside from a few important areas including the Old City in the centre, which is held by rebels. Some 400,000 people have fled from here and are now scattered across the rest of the city. The houses they leave behind are occupied by opposition fighters, a fair number of whom are non-Syrian jihadi volunteers intent on waging holy war. 'It is very difficult to talk to the Salafi [Islamic fundamentalists] in the Old City,' says Monsignor Michel Naaman, a Syriac Catholic priest who used to live there and who has sought to mediate and arrange ceasefires between the Free Syrian Army and government forces. [...] Rickety local ceasefires do not solve the Syrian crisis but they do prevent a lot of people being killed, jailed or driven from their homes. The fact that people in Homs have become inured to living in a constant state of terror does not make their suffering any better. 'It must be very dangerous to be a young man of military age here in Syria,' I said to a group of refugees in Homs, leading them to laugh dryly and respond: 'No, you are wrong. They kill men in their 60s and 70s as well!' I asked if they expected things to get better and they dolefully shook their heads. By pledging at a meeting in Qatar last weekend to send more arms and equipment to the rebels, the 11-member so-called 'Friends of Syria', including the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, decided in effect to stoke the civil war in Homs and the rest of Syria. To pretend it is not a civil war or to support the rebel side as somehow uniquely representative of the Syrian people flies in the face of demonstrable facts. West of Homs in the port city of Tartus on the Mediterranean there is a long wall with pictures of many of the 2,000 young men from the city killed fighting as soldiers for the government in the last two years. The Syrian state, in control of most of the country, is not going to implode just because the rebels receive fresh supplies of money and arms. As for Khalid and his hopeless search for his three missing sons, he says, 'I wish the Free Syrian Army and the government would leave ordinary people out of it and go and fight each other.'"</div>Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-13626531007918567472013-06-22T23:59:00.000-07:002013-06-22T23:59:09.784-07:00WORK (Pakistan)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Muhammad Isaac, a member of a mining team." (Anna Huix)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/hard-rock-calling-the-gemstone-hunters-who-risk-it-all-in-the-mountains-of-pakistan-8665458.html"><b>Hard Rock Calling: The Gemstone Hunters Who Risk It All in the Mountains of Pakistan</b></a><br />
By Simon Elias<br />
The Independent, June 23, 2013<br />
"An explosion shatters the peace of the village of Dassu, on the banks of the river Braldo, deep in the mountains of the Pakistani Karakoram. A mile upstream, suspended 260ft above the ground, Mohammad Ashraf puts another explosive in place and lights the fuse before taking cover. The explosion shakes the valley and spews a hail of stones into the void. Ashraf and his partner Gulam Nassur, armed with mallets and chisels, set to work while poised over the abyss. They're searching for gems, turned into crystals at great depth by tectonic phenomena in what are known as 'pegmatite' seams. Here, on the doorstep of a national park, Ashraf and Gulam handle large amounts of illegal explosives, working on a sheer cliff face while loaded with heavy pneumatic drills. In these mountains, however, as in many other parts of Pakistan, survival comes first, and obedience to the law second. The story of Gulam and Ashraf is the story of a country always on the brink of tragedy which has learnt that often the best way to get by is through laughter. Should they find a nice aquamarine, ruby or emerald, they will be rich; if not, they will go on working from sunrise to sundown, struggling on in poverty. [...] The village of Hushe is located more than 10,000ft above sea level, in the heart of the Karakoram mountains, not too far from the Chinese border and the Siachen glacier, a disputed zone now occupied by the Indian army. This remote area is home to four of only 14 mountains in the world to top 26,247ft (8,000m). K2, the planet's second highest peak at 28,250ft and perhaps the most difficult and dangerous k of all to climb, is the best known. One in every nine people who reach the top of K2 dies during the descent. In 2008, 11 people were killed by an avalanche at 27,230ft. At that altitude, even breathing is an extreme exertion. Over the past 30 years, due to the increasing popularity of mountain tourism, the strongest men in Hushe have worked as high-altitude porters. These are the men who carry the equipment, set the ropes and take the lead; they are also those who carry the oxygen bottles, tidy up the camp when it's all over and, above all, those who die. During the short and risky season they may earn about £1,250 for a five-week expedition. The alternatives, for those who lack the strength or prefer to avoid disproportionate risk, are shepherding and mining. Gulam Nabi looks frail, but if you peer deep into his eyes you may catch of a glimpse of the cheerful and indifferent disposition of a man who has escaped death many times. <br />
<a name='more'></a>His hands also tell a story that seemingly has little to do with his slight build and shy appearance. All his fingers are intact, an unusual feature among men who spend their lives handling explosives or carrying loads at 26,000ft at temperatures of 20 degrees below freezing. Nabi, who is 32, explains that he's always taken good care of himself up in the mountains. 'When I'm above 23,000ft, I never take off my goose-feather gloves,' he says. 'Uncovering your hand for a moment would be enough for it to freeze.' Nabi is from Hushe, and has spent the past eight years working as a high-altitude porter. This year, however, he decided to take some time off during the summer season to try his luck at mining. In the mountains of Pakistan, summer is short: about two months during which the climate is benign enough to work at high altitude. Nabi's mine is two days' walk from Hushe, on the right side of the Gondogoro glacier, and surrounded by mountains above 20,000ft. The miners work in a team of eight or nine called a handual. Two or three of them will be investors. One buys the explosives; another purchases the pneumatic drill; a third takes care of food expenses. The rest are unskilled labourers. Investors don't work, but the profits are divided equally among all members of the handual. Nabi's case is exceptional, as he has decided to work on his own, with only his wife for company. The mine, located inside the Karakoram National Park, belongs to the Pakistani people, but he doesn't have a permit to work there. For several days he carries 80lb loads to the campsite, a tough job but one he's used to as a result of his work as a porter. From the meadow of Shakg La, at 14,110ft, he searches for a vein of pegmatite to work on. The chosen spot is awe-inspiring. [...] One might say that the makeshift, dangerous and unregulated industry of the Baltistan mines is a reflection of a country torn apart by wars and civil strife. According to one observer, Haroon Arbab, who worked for the Stone and Mining Department, Baltistan's illegal miners can only be understood in this context. In the final analysis, he reflects, 'These men aren't miners, they're survivors.'"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-69571105599796795732013-05-13T03:21:00.001-07:002013-05-13T03:21:06.218-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Nigeria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"The hospital morgue in Maiduguri, Nigeria, where large numbers of bodies have been brought." (Adam Nossiter/The New York Times)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/world/africa/body-count-soars-as-nigerian-military-hunts-islamists.html?src=recg"><b>Bodies Pour In as Nigeria Hunts for Islamists</b></a><br />
By Adam Nossiter<br />
The New York Times, May 7, 2013<br />
"A fresh load of battered corpses arrived, 29 of them in a routine delivery by the Nigerian military to the hospital morgue here. Unexpectedly, three bodies started moving. 'They were not properly shot,' recalled a security official here. 'I had to call the JTF' -- the military's joint task force -- 'and they gunned them down.' It was a rare oversight. Large numbers of bodies, sometimes more than 60 in a day, are being brought by the Nigerian military to the state hospital, according to government, health and security officials, hospital workers and human rights groups -- the product of the military’s brutal war against radical Islamists rooted in this northern city. The corpses were those of young men arrested in neighborhood sweeps by the military and taken to a barracks nearby. Accused, often on flimsy or no evidence, of being members or supporters of Boko Haram -- the Islamist militant group waging a bloody insurgency against the Nigerian state -- the detainees are beaten, starved, shot and even suffocated to death, say the officials, employees and witnesses. Then, soldiers bring the bodies to the hospital and dump them at the morgue, officials and workers say. The flood is so consistent that the small morgue at the edge of the hospital grounds often has no room, with corpses flung by the military in the sand around it. Residents say they sometimes have to flee the neighborhood because of the fierce smell of rotting flesh. From the outset of the battle between Boko Haram and the military, a dirty war on both sides that has cost nearly 4,000 lives since erupting in this city in 2009, security forces have been accused of extrajudicial killings and broad, often indiscriminate roundups of suspects and sympathizers in residential areas. The military's harsh tactics, which it flatly denies, have reduced militant attacks in this insurgent stronghold, but at huge cost and with likely repercussions, officials and rights advocates contend. <br />
<a name='more'></a>No one doubts that Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings that have killed officials and civilians alike, is thoroughly enmeshed in the local populace, making the job of extricating the group extremely difficult. But as with other abuses, the bodies piling up at the morgue -- where it is often impossible to distinguish combatants from the innocent -- have turned many residents against the military, driving some toward the insurgency, officials say. Even the state's governor, who acknowledged that he must tread a careful line not to offend the Nigerian military, expressed disquiet at the tactics. 'A lot of lives are lost on a daily basis due to the inhumane conditions' at the barracks, known as Giwa, said the governor, Kashim Shettima. 'They do deposit bodies on a daily basis.' Moreover, the bodies come in even when there have been no bombings, sectarian clashes or battles between the military and the insurgents, making it unlikely that the dead were killed in combat, terrorist attacks or similar circumstances. 'Mostly they bring the corpses from Giwa Barracks, the JTF,' said one hospital worker. Most of the young men died 'from beating, bullets, maltreatment,' he added. 'You can hardly see a corpse here from sickness. Sometimes it is up to 120 corpses they bring.' His colleague at the hospital, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said: 'Every day. An average of 14 to 15 bodies a day. They accumulate. Some are swollen. Almost all are emaciated. Some they bring in with their handcuffs still on.' On a recent blazingly hot Saturday, a convoy of two armored cars and an ambulance barreled into the sandy grounds of the sprawling state hospital, sirens wailing. Wary Nigerian Army machine gunners flanked the ambulance, and the attendants wore face masks against the odor in the 109-degree heat. It was not the only convoy that day, said rights advocates who also observed the scene. 'The numbers can be outrageous; they bring them in an ambulance, two or three ambulances, loaded,' the security official said. 'Most of them are tortured.' Overwhelmed morgue attendants sometimes simply flee their post, the official said. [...]"</div>Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-71021081805124837662013-03-22T09:11:00.002-07:002013-03-22T09:11:54.679-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT / FAMILY & SEXUALITY (India)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Indian women hold a protest in New Delhi after the fatal gang rape of a student there in December." (Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images, January 2, 2013)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india-rape-law-20130322,0,4605980.story"><b>Critics Say India Rape Law Opens Way to More Abuse</b></a><br />
By Mark Magnier<br />
The Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2013<br />
"Vijendera Kumar has been sentenced to work and live in a cow shed for six months, feeding and bathing the animals and shoveling their dung 10 hours a day, seven days a week, after eloping at 17 with his girlfriend. That is in addition to a year the laborer spent in jail. 'They didn't even investigate my case,' Kumar said, surrounded by 300 lumbering beasts. 'Punishing young people for having consensual sex is unfair and backwards.' Among the most controversial provisions of anti-rape legislation passed Thursday in India's Parliament -- in hurried response to public anger over the fatal mid-December gang rape of a 23-year old physiotherapy student -- was a provision setting the age of sexual consent at 18. But even before the law passed, Indian law was flexible enough, as Kumar learned, to make consensual sex among teenagers risky, a paradox in a society where rape has often gone unpunished and marriages are still arranged among the young. Reformist lawmakers argued in recent days that the age of consent should be 16 to prevent wrongful arrests in a changing society, but conservatives prevailed, fearful that a lower age would encourage premarital sex and undermine Indian morality. It was fixed at 16 from 1983 until February, when an ordinance moved it higher. Critics say the higher age opens the way for further abuses because parents frequently file rape and kidnapping charges against boys who have consensual sex with their daughters, consigning the boys to jail and the girls into quickly arranged marriages to 'protect their honor.' <br />
<a name='more'></a>In India, there's often a disconnect between law and practice. The legal marriage age is 21 for men and 18 for women, for example, but 47% of Indian women marry younger than 18, according to a 2012 United Nations report, a higher percentage than in Afghanistan or Sudan. 'All these so-called traditional-value people have no problem when children are forced into marriage by their parents,' said Nandita Rao, an attorney. 'But they want to criminalize consensual sex. It's hypocritical.' The wide-ranging new law also makes stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks and forcibly disrobing a woman explicit crimes, provides capital punishment for rapes leading to death and raises to 20 years from 10 the minimum sentence for gang rape and rapes committed by a policeman. The law doesn't address marital rape or rape against men, however. 'We have tried to bring in a strong law, which is pro-women and will act as a deterrent,' Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told lawmakers Thursday. As Kumar, now 23, shovels manure in the 150-by-200-foot enclosure he's been confined to under his six-month sentence, he reflects on his nightmare, which started in 2007 when he was 17. His girlfriend Pooja, 15, who uses one name, pleaded with him to run away with her. He discouraged her, sensing trouble -- Pooja's family disliked him — but she threatened suicide. 'I knew I'd be blamed either way, for her abduction or her suicide,' he said, sitting on a red plastic chair in the cow shed. 'And she promised to say it was her idea, even if we got caught.' [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-20143773160793955942013-03-11T09:39:00.000-07:002013-03-11T09:39:05.021-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Bodies revealed by the Queiq river's receding waters." (Thomas Rassloff/EPA)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/mar/11/syria-bodies-river-aleppo-massacre"><b>Syria: The Story behind One of the Most Shocking Images of the War</b></a><br />
By Martin Chulov<br />
The Guardian, March 11, 2013<br />
"It is already one of the defining images of the Syrian civil war: a line of bodies at neatly spaced intervals lying on a river bed in the heart of Syria’s second city Aleppo. All 110 victims have been shot in the head, their hands bound with plastic ties behind their back. Their brutal execution only became apparent when the winter high waters of the Queiq river, which courses through the no man’s land between the opposition-held east of the city and the regime-held west, subsided in January. It's a picture that raises so many questions: who were these men? How did they die? Why? What does their story tell us about the wretched disintegration of Syria? A Guardian investigation has established a grisly narrative behind the worst -- and most visible -- massacre to have taken place here. All the men were from neighbourhoods in the eastern rebel-held part of Aleppo. Most were men of working age. Many disappeared at regime checkpoints. They may not be the last to be found. Locals have since dropped a grate from a bridge, directly over an eddy in the river. Corpses were still arriving 10 days after the original discovery on January 29, washed downstream by currents flushed by winter rains. Just after dawn on 29 January, a car pulled up outside a school being used as a rebel base in the Aleppo suburb of Bustan al-Qasr with news of the massacre. Since then a painstaking task to identify the victims and establish how they died has been inching forwards. The victims, many without names, were mostly buried within three days -- 48 hours longer than social custom dictates, to allow for their families to claim them. Ever since, relatives have been arriving to identify the dead from photographs taken by the rescuers. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Each family member who has made the journey to a makeshift office, set up inside a childcare centre, brings with them accounts of when they last saw their father, son, cousin, or brother and where he had travelled before he was murdered. There are no women on the grisly slideshow of dead men that is replayed in melancholy slow motion every time a relative arrives. Nor are there more than a handful of males aged over 30. Most of the dead dragged from Aleppo’s Queiq River were men of working age. Another thread strongly unites the fate of the river massacre victims; each of them had either been in the west of the city, or had been trying to get there. They had to pass though checkpoints run by the Syrian army, or their proxy militia, the Shabiha. The process involved handing over identification papers that detailed in which area of the city the holder of the papers lived. In mid-February, the Guardian interviewed 11 family members of massacre victims in the Bustan al-Qasr area, who all confirmed that their dead relatives had vanished in regime areas, or had been trying to reach them. Two other men who had been arrested at regime checkpoints and later freed were also interviewed. Both alleged that mass killings had taken place in the security prisons in which they had been held. They identified the prisons as Air Force intelligence and Military Security -- two of the most infamous state security facilities in Syria. 'If they took you to the park, you were finished,' said one of the men, who had been freed in mid-January. 'We all knew that. It is a miracle that I am standing here talking to you.' The man, in his early 20s, refused to be identified even back in the relative safety of the east of the city. Nowadays, he spends his mornings on the banks of the river, waiting for more bodies to float down. The concrete ledge from where the bodies were recovered is now covered by waters which, on 29 January, had receded leaving the sodden remains exposed, blood oozing from single bullet wounds to each of their shattered skulls. Further north, around four kilometres upstream is the park that the man speaks about, a large public space near the Queiq River in west Aleppo. The rebels in the east suspect that the bodies they recovered may have drifted from this point while waters were flowing strongly in the last week of January. Their suspsicions centre on two witnesses who came forward in the days following the massacre. One of them, Abdel Rezzaq, 19, arrived at the Revolutionary Security office, run from the abandoned daycare centre, in a muddy narrow lane in the heart of Bustan al-Qasr. Together with his parents, he wrote a hand-written statement alleging that, while inside the Air Force intelligence prison, he had heard the sounds of 30 men being shot dead. We found Abdel Rezzaq, now working as a straight vendor selling coffee in Bustan al-Qasr. 'I was living in Bustan area (in the west) and I was working as a carpenter,' he said. 'I went downtown (in west Aleppo) to buy a falafel sandwich. The military caught and they started beating me all over my body and they were saying that I am with the Free Syria Army. They beat me for 8 days day and night and demanded I confess. They were transferring me from one base to another airforce base. I was arrested on the 10th of October and stayed (in prison) for about 2.5 months to 3 months. Before I left the prison, they took 30 people from isolation cells and killed them.' Abdel Rezzaq said he was being held in Block 4, within earshot of the solitary confinement cells and the area where he alleges the prisoners were taken, then executed. 'They handcuffed them and blindfolded them and they were torturing them till they died. They poured acid on them. The smell was very strong and we were suffocating from it. Then we heard gunshots. The next day they put me and some of the others in front of men with guns, but they didn’t shoot at us. They freed me later that day. I heard women screaming. They were pouring alcohol on us and cursing us. Only God got us out of there, no-one gets out alive. And only god knows what happened to the rest of the people who were in there. I will fight for this cause because I want the whole world to see what is happening.' The account of the man who refused to be identified matched Abdel Rezzaq, although he claimed he was held in the Military Security prison. 'I was there for a month,' he said. 'Then one night they took us to an area outside, it was near a park and I thought that was it. I was preparing for death through by praying and they started shooting along a wall where they had libed people up. There were about four guys next to me, to my right, and they stopped shooting. I heard one officer say "let them go". And here I am. I will stay waiting for these bodies for the rest of the war. I cannot believe I am here.' [...]"</div>Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-89595568857373255202013-02-06T22:59:00.002-08:002013-02-06T23:00:07.387-08:00RITUAL & BELIEF (Mali)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"In this Friday, Feb. 1, 2013 file photo, Abdoulaye Cisse, who lives in the Timbuktu area, holds open a book at the Hamed Baba book repository, one of the world's most precious collections of ancient manuscripts, in Timbuktu, Mali. Islamists claimed they burned most of the holy books there, and for eight days the fire alarm blared inside the repository. But because of the ingenuity of the people of Timbuktu, who hid manuscripts in millet bags, the al-Qaida-linked extremists succeeded in destroying only 5 percent of the collection." (Harouna Traore/AP Photo)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/people-timbuktu-save-manuscripts-invaders"><b>People of Timbuktu Save Manuscripts from Invaders</b></a><br />
By Rukmini Callimachi<br />
Associated Press dispatch, February 4, 2013<br />
"For eight days after the Islamists set fire to one of the world's most precious collections of ancient manuscripts, the alarm inside the building blared. It was an eerie, repetitive beeping, a cry from the innards of the injured library that echoed around the world. The al-Qaida-linked extremists who ransacked the institute wanted to deal a final blow to Mali, whose northern half they had held for 10 months before retreating in the face of a French-led military advance. They also wanted to deal a blow to the world, especially France, whose capital houses the headquarters of UNESCO, the organization which recognized and elevated Timbuktu's monuments to its list of World Heritage sites. So as they left, they torched the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research, aiming to destroy a heritage of 30,000 manuscripts that date back to the 13th century.'These manuscripts are our identity,' said Abdoulaye Cisse, the library's acting director. 'It's through these manuscripts that we have been able to reconstruct our own history, the history of Africa. People think that our history is only oral, not written. What proves that we had a written history are these documents.' The first people who spotted the column of black smoke on Jan. 23 were the residents whose homes surround the library, and they ran to tell the center's employees. The bookbinders, manuscript restorers and security guards who work for the institute broke down and cried. Just about the only person who didn't was Cisse, the acting director, who for months had harbored a secret. Starting last year, he and a handful of associates had conspired to save the documents so crucial to this 1,000-year-old town. In April, when the rebels preaching a radical version of Islam first rolled into this city swirling with sand, the institute was in the process of moving its collection into a new, state-of-the-art building. The fighters commandeered the new center, turning it into a dormitory for one of their units of foreign fighters, Cisse said. They didn't realize only about 2,000 manuscripts had been moved there, the bulk of the collection remaining at the old library, he said. <br />
<a name='more'></a>The Islamists came in, as they did in Afghanistan, with their own, severe interpretation of Islam, intent on rooting out what they saw as the veneration of idols instead of the pure worship of Allah. During their 10-month-rule, they eviscerated much of the identity of this storied city, starting with the mausoleums of their saints, which were reduced to rubble. The turbaned fighters made women hide their faces and blotted out their images on billboards. They closed hair salons, banned makeup and forbade the music for which Mali is known. Their final act before leaving was to go through the exhibition room in the institute, as well as the whitewashed laboratory used to restore the age-old parchments. They grabbed the books they found and burned them. However, they didn't bother searching the old building, where an elderly man named Abba Alhadi has spent 40 of his 72 years on earth taking care of rare manuscripts. The illiterate old man, who walks with a cane and looks like a character from the Bible, was the perfect foil for the Islamists. They wrongly assumed that the city's European-educated elite would be the ones trying to save the manuscripts, he said. So last August, Alhadi began stuffing the thousands of books into empty rice and millet sacks. At night, he loaded the millet sacks onto the type of trolley used to cart boxes of vegetables to the market. He pushed them across town and piled them into a lorry and onto the backs of motorcycles, which drove them to the banks of the Niger River. From there, they floated down to the central Malian town of Mopti in a pinasse, a narrow, canoe-like boat. Then cars drove them from Mopti, the first government-controlled town, to Mali's capital, Bamako, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from here. 'I have spent my life protecting these manuscripts. This has been my life's work. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer protect them here,' said Alhadi. 'It hurt me deeply to see them go, but I took strength knowing that they were being sent to a safe place.' It took two weeks in all to spirit out the bulk of the collection, around 28,000 texts housed in the old building covering the subjects of theology, astronomy, geography and more. There was nothing they could do, however, for the 2,000 documents that had already been transferred to the new library, to its exhibition and restoration rooms, and to a basement vault. Cisse took solace knowing that most of the texts in the new library had been digitized. Even so, when his staff came to tell him about the fire, he felt a constriction in his chest. ... The collection is itself only a portion of the estimated 101,820 manuscripts stored in private libraries here, the product of the confluence of caravan routes which passed through Timbuktu and fostered an extensive trading network, including in books. Among the most valuable are the Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-Fattash, chronicles which describe life in Timbuktu during the Songhai empire in the 16th century. 'We lost a lot of our riches. But we were also able to save a great deal of our riches, and for that I am overcome with joy,' Cisse said. 'These manuscripts represent who we are. ... I saved these books in the name of Timbuktu first, because I am from Timbuktu. Then I did it for my country. And also for all of humanity. Because knowledge is for all of humanity.'"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-40411335641806445032013-02-04T18:06:00.002-08:002013-02-04T18:07:13.872-08:00WORK (Egypt)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"A man leaves an exchange office in Cairo last month after changing foreign currency. At the heart of the discontent in Egypt is the public anger over the battered economy." (Nasser Nasser/Associated Press)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-broken-economy-20130203,0,4495326.story"><b>Under Egypt's Political Unrest Seethes the Rising Anger of the Poor</b></a><br />
By Jeffrey Fleishman<br />
The Los Angeles Times, Februarhy 2, 2013<br />
"Hands caked in plaster, hammers scattered at his side, Yousry Abdelaziz toils away almost forgotten in a workshop at the edge of a shantytown that echoes with gunshots and the hollers of boys peddling cabbages in the middle of the night. The car mechanic next door is faring no better, even with his new marketing gimmick, a sculpture of mufflers and silver pipes twisting like fingers into the sky. A man has to try something to call attention to his business as the inflation rate rises, the Egyptian pound tumbles and sparse ingredients make subsidized bread as thin as paper. 'We open at 8 a.m., but by the time we close we still sell nothing,' said Abdelaziz, who chisels plaster cornices and ceiling decorations for houses that aren't being built. He looked to a clump of plaster not yet shaped. 'I had to fire three of my six workers. I couldn't pay them anymore.' Nationwide riots protesting President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-linked party have swept Egypt in recent days, killing more than 50 people, most of them in the coastal city of Port Said. Since its revolution two years ago, the country has been overwhelmed by ideological battles between liberals and Islamists, its ambitions obscured by clouds of tear gas and flashes of gasoline bombs. But at the heart of the discontent is public anger over the battered economy, specifically the president's failure to improve the lives of millions of people like Abdelaziz who voted for him last year. ... Desperation radiates through this neighborhood that borders a centuries-old cemetery, where mechanics, plumbers, vegetable vendors and fix-it men move in angry rhythms. Sometimes a man in a pressed suit hurries through the alleys like a preening bird, hops onto a falling-apart minibus and heads out looking for work he probably won't find. It's always been poor along these quarried cliffs, where Cairo stretches out all the way to the pyramids. Laborers, fishermen and farmers from the southern provinces and the northern delta began arriving decades ago, nailing up wood and corrugated tin, replacing it later with bricks and mortar. <br />
<a name='more'></a>They survived 30 years of Hosni Mubarak's negligent rule, but since his downfall conditions have worsened, and even the wild dogs prowl in smaller packs. The Brotherhood occasionally sets up stalls to sell milk, tomatoes and meat at below-market prices. Parliamentary elections are planned for the spring, and the Islamists are skilled at gathering votes from the poor. But the economic burden has widened and the mistrust has deepened. Many complain that Morsi is as aloof to their needs as his predecessor was, and has yet to realize the revolution's central creed: bread, dignity, freedom, social justice. 'Before the revolution there was a lot of work, but now it's bad,' said Moahmed Abdel Salam, the salesman with the muffler art and three children. He searched for a euphemism, adding that Egypt was in a time of saving because no one can afford anything. 'As long as I have dinner at night I try not to worry about how much business I'm losing.' These warrens never quiet: Street sweepers push gnarled brooms and sparks fly from metal shops deep into the night. But the sparse money flowing into apartments, many still with pirated electricity and no running water, vanishes into prescriptions for sick children or the pocket of the man who sells cooking gas. The head of Egypt's besieged central bank resigned last month. No one noticed here. The powerful have long been curious abstractions, or as one man put it, 'big people playing games only God knows.' 'I can't get married,' said Mahmoud Ahmed, a 20-year-old tire repairman with blackened hands who keeps putting off a life he can't pay for. 'I need time to build myself up. I was engaged but I broke it off seven months ago. I have no money. How can I have a wife? If I think too much about how bad things are, I get mad,' Ahmed said. 'When I'm alone, I think about it a lot.' When Abdelaziz, the plaster worker, voted for Morsi in June, he had hoped the new president would lift the 40% of Egyptians who live on $2 a day. Abdelaziz said the Islamist-led government needs time to fix years of corruption, 'but if it gets any worse, we'll be as bad off as Somalia.' Abdelaziz floated through his shop in a white tunic. His hands stayed on a perpetual hunt for a cigarette, his silver teeth glinted in the plaster dust. When he was a younger man, he packed his hammers and chisels and worked for 20 years in Saudi Arabia. He returned to Egypt in 1992 -- "I curse that day now" -- and inherited his father's trade. He keeps his brushes dipped in a gasoline and soap solution that binds the plaster. He works every day, his white, chalky cornices and ceiling decorations accumulating as if in a cluttered closet. He once wanted to build big houses, but his dreams shrank to fit his circumstances. He widened his eyes and mentioned oranges, baffled by the quadrupling of their price over the last year. His brother, who cut marble counters next door, died a few weeks ago and now Abdelaziz, his son and nephew struggle to keep two dwindling businesses alive. He is 65, too old, he said, to find work in another country, but too desperate to lay down his tools. 'I used to visit Europe,' he said, as if recalling another man's life. 'I don't know much about politics. I don't care who's in power anymore. I just want to be able to eat and pay my employees.'"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-27453590276649472013-01-29T08:17:00.001-08:002013-01-29T09:40:08.674-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Free Syrian Army fighters say they are still recovering bodies at the river, where several people were found dead." (EPA)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9834260/Aleppo-executions-65-bodies-pulled-from-Syria-river.html"><b>Aleppo Executions: 65 Bodies Pulled from Syria River</b></a><br />
The Telegraph, January 29, 2013<br />
"The bodies of at least 65 young men and boys, all executed with a single gunshot to the head or neck, were found on Tuesday in a river in the Syrian city of Aleppo, a watchdog and rebels said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 65 bodies were found in the Quweiq River, which separates the Bustan al-Qasr district from Ansari in the southwest of the city, but that the toll could rise significantly. A Free Syrian Army officer at the scene said at least 68 bodies had been recovered and that many more were still being dragged from the water, in a rebel-held area. 'Until now we have recovered 68 bodies, some of them just teens,' said Captain Abu Sada, adding that all of them had been 'executed by the regime.' 'But there must be more than 100. There are still many in the water, and we are trying to recover them.' A senior government security source said many of the victims were from Bustan al-Qasr and had been reported kidnapped earlier. He accused 'terrorists,' the standard regime term for people fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, of carrying out the executions and spreading propaganda to deflect responsibility. 'They were kidnapped by terrorist groups, who some are accusing of being pro-regime, and executed last night in a park in Bustan al-Qasr under their control,' the source told news agency Agence France-Presse by telephone. ... A volunteer said as he helped load one of the bodies on a truck: 'We don't know who they are because there was no ID on them.' At least 15 bodies could already be seen on the truck, an AFP correspondent said, with other continuing to arrive. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Abu Sada said they would be taken to the hospital at Zarzur where relatives could seek to identify them. 'Those who are not identified will be buried in a common grave,' noting that 'some were unrecognisable because of the impact of the bullet.' Meanwhile, people were gathering at the bank seeking lost relatives. 'My brother disappeared weeks ago when he was crossing (through) the regime-held zone, and we don't know where he is or what has become of him,' said Mohammed Abdel Aziz, as he looked at the mud-covered bodies one by one. 'They could have been executed a couple of days ago and the current brought the bodies this far,' an FSA fighter, Abu Anas, told AFP. The 129-kilometre (80 mile) river originates in Turkey to the north and flows to the southwest of Aleppo, traversing both regime and rebel-held areas. 'This is not the first time that we have found the bodies of people executed, but so many, never,' he says numbly, as he examines the body of a boy of about 12 with a gunshot wound to the back of the neck. 'The shabiha (pro-government militia) seize people crossing the checkpoint ... and they torture and execute many of them,' said Abu Anas. In video filmed by activists and published by the Observatory on YouTube, the cameraman walks along the river, less than two metres (yards) wide, and films some 50 bodies that have been pulled onto the concrete path. Most have their hands are tied behind their backs and pools of blood trail from their heads. Their faces are white and bodies bloated. All look to be young men, some teens, wearing jeans, button-up shirts and sneakers. The cameraman films them one-by-one as he walks slowly down the path, then starts running towards more ahead of him."</div>Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-51995743398708502392013-01-21T22:19:00.002-08:002013-01-21T22:50:47.434-08:00WORK (D.R. Congo)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"A man in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, transports a diesel generator on his chikudu, a primitive wooden bicycle capable of carrying heavy loads." (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-congo-wooden-bikes-20130122,0,5015244.story"><b>Congo's Chairmen of the Boards</b></a><br />
By Robyn Dixon<br />
The Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2013<br />
"It's an ungainly beast of a machine: a wooden bicycle with handlebars like great bull's horns, two runtish wooden wheels, a chunky frame like a squashed triangle and no pedals. There's no seat either, just a kneepad fixed to the frame, made from a spongy Chinese flip-flop. The Congolese chikudu looks like it rolled right off the pages of a child's drawing book and onto the rutted roads of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Uzima Bahati, 18, was a child himself when he became a chikudu operator. He left school when he was about 12, and has spent the last six years pushing astonishing loads on the surprisingly sturdy contraption, his whole body bent to the task. 'It really helped me in life because it's like a free job,' he says. 'When I get enough money each day, I can go home and buy food.' He's so proud of his chikudu that he spent $5 -- more than twice the average daily wage here -- for brown and white paint and brushes, to make it look smart. In careful but wobbly script, he painted his cellphone number on the vehicle along with maxims such as 'A job's a job' and 'Stop talking so much.' The latter, he says, shows he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, even if they're laughing. Other chikudu riders (or rather pushers, since it's rare that the owners actually get to ride the lumbering machines) taunt Bahati for his painted version, which by Congolese standards is almost gaudy. Most of them are battered and stained grayish. 'My friends laugh at me, saying: "You have money to spend on nothing. You could use the money you spent on paint to buy something useful,"' says Bahati, a layer of thick grime coating his body. 'When they laugh, I don't feel bad.' His eyes dart about with curious amusement, a semi-smile fixed on his lips. When he's working, which is every day, he wears a shirt worn to a web of holes. But before meeting his sweetheart or hosting visitors, he dons a crisp white jacket and pristine trousers. <br />
<a name='more'></a>To people here, the chikudu symbolizes the tough, never-say-die determination of the Congolese, for whom every meal, every gallon of water for washing and drinking, every plank and metal sheet used to build a house must be hauled from someplace else. Chikudus are like quiet oxen that require no food, just the occasional squirt from an oilcan. People's dependence on them -- and on their children to push home the backbreaking loads -- is testament to the poverty of the people in this part of Congo, most of whom survive on less than $2 a day. They're a perfect fit for Goma, a booming city of 1 million on the picturesque shores of Lake Kivu, where the tracks off the main roads are undulating rivers of volcanic rock, the detritus of a 2002 eruption that spewed lava through the city. The rock shreds the rubber tires of conventional bicycles, which are no match for the sturdy chikudu. 'Ordinary bicycles are useless. They don't carry much and they get punctures all the time,' says Bahati's cousin Cengi Byamungu, a chikudu maker who put together the machine Bahati is so proud of. Around here, comparing a chikudu to a conventional bicycle would be like equating a 10-ton truck with a VW Beetle. The wooden vehicles, people like to boast, can carry half a ton of potatoes. Half a ton? They look sturdy enough, but this sounds like a Congolese tall tale. Perhaps they mean 100 pounds, not 1,000? 'It is truth!' one man shouts in broken English, grinning from a crowd pressing close during a Goma street interview with another chikudu owner. Other voices interject, popping with enthusiasm, eager to overcome all doubts about their magnificent machines. Potatoes come in sacks of 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and the chikudu can carry five at a time, they insist. Even the chunky Chinese motorcycles common in Africa cannot rival the chikudu for cargo and are used mostly in Goma as taxis. In rural areas outside the city, men, boys and sometimes girls push chikudus along roads in the late evening, laden with enormous bundles of sugar cane. The loads are so heavy that five or six people are needed to get the cargo home to their villages. [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-16634770078725146642013-01-16T15:26:00.002-08:002013-01-21T22:50:58.049-08:00FAMILY & SEXUALITY (India)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Indian men in the village of Innamrediyarpatti, from left: pipe fitter Ponnusamy, 67; retiree Dhanushkoti, 63; farmer Kalimuthu, 60; and textile mill worker Michael, 62. Even as India debates the morality and legality of euthanasia, three districts in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have been quietly carrying out their own version of it." (Mark Magnier / Los Angeles Times)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india-mercy-killings-20130116,0,6351296,full.story"><b>In Southern India, Relatives Sometimes Quietly Kill Their Elders</b></a><br />
By Mark Magnier<br />
The Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2013<br />
""[...] Even as India debates the morality and legality of euthanasia, three districts in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have been quietly carrying out a homegrown version for decades, or centuries, depending on whom you ask. The practice in one small corner of India has declined under the spotlight after a high-profile 2010 case and growing opposition from elderly rights groups, but dozens, even hundreds, of cases of thalaikoothal, or 'head pouring,' occur quietly each year, people say. 'Some call it euthanasia,' said Rajeshwar Devarakonda, social protection head at HelpAge India, a civic group focused on elderly care. 'Others call it homicide.' Although it can take various forms, a common approach is that once an elderly relative becomes seriously ill and the family can't afford to care for the person, a date is set. Often relatives are called to say goodbye or even participate. The victim is given an oil bath, a head massage perhaps involving cold water and an exceedingly large amount of green coconut milk, leading to death. Reducing a sick or frail person's body temperature can bring on heart failure, said Dr. Raja Natrajan, a geriatrician, while drinking excessive liquids can induce renal failure. In a variation, victims are force-fed cow's milk and their noses pinched shut -- an act called 'milk therapy' -- resulting in 'breathing problems,' said S. Gurusamy, a sociology professor at the Gandhigram Rural Institute. [...] Despite community claims that it's used only in terminal cases, social acceptability has resulted in abuses, care experts said, as impatient family members 'hurry things along' to gain control of the estate, sometimes with the help of compliant doctors or quacks who substitute poison-laced alcohol or pills for coconut milk. 'Nowadays, because of their assets, young people sometimes want thalaikoothal done even if it's just a cold or minor sickness,' said Elango Rajarathinam, Virudhunagar-based director of Elders for Elders Foundation. 'Old people are definitely scared of this practice. You can see the stress on their faces.' Occasionally, those targeted get wind of it and flee. Others just accept their fate, experts said, even requesting thalaikoothal, less because they're ready to die than because society makes them feel worthless. [...] Although women's status in India is often low, men are more frequently the victims of thalaikoothal, experts said, in part because assets are generally in their names, providing an incentive. Also, daughters-in-law who provide most elder care are reluctant to assist men, given social taboos. In addition, some perceive men's housekeeping skills as limited in male-dominated India, leaving them seemingly dependent.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>'An old man can't even make his own tea or take care of the grandchildren, while older women remain useful,' said Devarakonda. Many people feel they're just relieving someone's suffering, added Gurusamy, who sees thalaikoothal as more a family decision than a moral concern. 'You can try anything, but it won't stop thalaikoothal,' said Dhanushkoti, 63, a retiree in Innamrediyarpatti. 'In our culture, if there's a problem in the house, the family, not the government, handles it.' Rather than fighting entrenched culture directly, activists said, they're trying to improve underlying social and economic conditions through education and calls for improved palliative care. Elders' health often deteriorates for very basic reasons, they said, including untreated bedsores that lead to severe infection and, ultimately, thalaikoothal. The gradual spread of pensions, however modest, is also helping. 'If you're dead, you can't bring a pension in,' said Rajarathinam. 'Now families have an interest in keeping you alive.' Activists have created about 500 elder-empowerment groups to confront neighbors suspected of planning thalaikoothal and are teaching children to act as community watchdogs, although these measures aren't always effective. As several men in their 70s gather in the Innamrediyarpatti community hall for a self-help meeting, most acknowledge that they've never prevented thalaikoothal and would be reluctant to do so. 'If I try and stop someone, they'll just say, "Then you take care of the old man yourself,"' said Kalimuthu, a group member. 'What can I say? I can't afford to keep him.' [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-4967258386684231672013-01-03T22:12:00.001-08:002013-01-21T22:54:56.138-08:00RITUAL & BELIEF (South Africa)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2013/01/20131211736199557.html">Ndiyindoda: I Am a Man</a></b><br />
People and Power - Al Jazeera.com, January 3, 2013<br />
"A week before Christmas, amid increasing anxiety about the state of Nelson Mandela's health, the international media assembled in Pretoria, South Africa and began asking questions about the iconic former leader's future wellbeing. Would he ever leave hospital? Would he live to see another year? For domestic South African journalists, however, the story had another angle. In Mandela's Eastern Cape homeland, the breaking story was that his illness meant he would almost certainly miss his grandson's initiation ceremony back home in Qunu. Mandela, like many powerful political figures in South Africa, is a Xhosa. For Xhosa boys, their ceremonial transition to manhood -- a process known as Ukwaluka -- includes traditional circumcision. It is a time honoured ritual woven deep into the fabric of their society. Mandela recalled his own three months at initiation school in 1934 in his memoir A Long Walk To Freedom. 'An uncircumcised Xhosa man is a contradiction in terms,' he wrote, 'for he is not considered a man at all, but a boy. A boy will cry, but a man conceals his pain.' [<i>n.b. </i>Mandela's account is included in my <i>Men of the Global South </i>anthology.] Today's rites of passage ceremonials tend to last for three weeks rather than three months, but the core elements remain the same -- and so do the risks. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Circumcision is carried out in a manner which has changed little in the 80 years since young Nelson cried 'Ndiyindoda! I Am A Man!' Without access to anaesthetic, painkillers, or even antibiotics, boys' foreskins are cut by traditional surgeons. The more enlightened perform the operation with sterile surgical blades. But old habits die hard, and penknives or traditional daggers are still often used. In recent years, South Africans have grown increasingly accustomed to reading about initiation gone tragically wrong. In 2001, the government passed the Traditional Circumcision Act in an attempt to prevent more death and dismemberment. Since then, more than 500 boys are known to have died in the Eastern Cape alone. Last month, December 2012, at least 15 boys died, and 64 were hospitalised. Most deaths occur as a result of septicaemia which could be treated with access to basic drugs, such as penicillin. Speaking out against a practice that is woven into the fabric of Xhosa society is not easy, but it seems that a tipping point may have been reached. Doctors such as Mamisa Nxiweni are growing increasingly vocal, blaming bogus surgeons, and a rise in commercialism with families paying up to 300 Rands (about $40) for a service which used to be performed freely, in exchange for some labour while the boys were at the school. As Dr. Nixiweni told People & Power filmmaker Mayenzeke Baza: 'Surgeons forget about the boys' wellbeing and just concentrate on how much money they will make.' [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-80332209593271488962012-12-31T12:19:00.002-08:002013-01-21T22:51:34.563-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/dozens-tortured-bodies-found-damascus-151932185.html" target="_blank"><b>Dozens of Tortured Bodies Found in Damascus</b></a><br />
Agence France-Presse dispatch on Yahoo! News, December 31, 2012<br />
"Dozens of tortured bodies have been found in a flashpoint district of Damascus, a watchdog reported on Monday, in one of the worst atrocities in Syria's 21-month conflict. The report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came as a gruesome video emerged on the Internet of a separate slaying of three children who had their throats slashed, also in the capital. 'Thirty bodies were found in the Barzeh district. They bore signs of torture and have so far not been identified,' said the Britain-based Observatory. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, estimated there were 50 bodies, and added that 'their heads were cut and disfigured to the point that it was no longer possible to identify' them. The video posted online by activists showed the bodies of three young boys with their throats slit open and hands bound behind their backs. Their bodies were discovered on Monday in Jubar. The Observatory also reported the killing of the boys, who opposition activists said had been kidnapped the day before at a checkpoint on their way home from school. These reports could not be verified independently because of media restrictions by the Syrian authorities. Regime warplanes, meanwhile, bombarded rebel positions on the northeastern and southwestern outskirts of Damascus, leaving eight civilians dead including two children, said the Observatory. [...]"<br />
<i>[n.b. When you read "dozens of tortured bodies," translate as "dozens of tortured males." Can you imagine dozens of murdered females being described in this fashion?]</i></div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-23579016206357141632012-12-30T19:39:00.002-08:002013-01-21T22:51:43.719-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Nigeria)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-nigeria-trapped-between-islamist-radicals-and-security-forces/2012/12/30/4b20b4de-507c-11e2-835b-02f92c0daa43_story.html" target="_blank"><b>In Nigeria, Trapped between Islamist Radicals and Security Forces</b></a><br />
By Sudarsan Raghavan<br />
The Washington Post, December 30, 2012<br />
"The armed men dragged Musa Muhammad out of his house and ordered him to lie face down on the ground. Then they grabbed his son. After asking his name, the men issued their judgment. 'I heard three gunshots -- pop, pop, pop,' Muhammad recalled, his voice trembling, his fingers in the shape of a pistol. 'My son was dead, killed in front of me.' His assailants were not the radical Islamists who have brutalized this town. They were government security forces sent to protect the residents. In the epicenter of one of Africa's most violent religious extremist movements, civilians are caught in a guerrilla conflict that has shattered families and communal relationships. The Boko Haram, a homegrown group with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, is assassinating people nearly every day, targeting Christians, soldiers, police, even astrologers as it seeks to weaken the Western-allied government and install Islamic sharia law in this nation. But the security forces have also carried out extrajudicial killings, imprisoned hundreds on flimsy grounds, looted and burned shops and houses, according to victims, local officials and human rights activists. ... 'In a guerrilla war, you need the help of the local population. But the security forces are alienating the people,' said Muhammad Abdullahi, the provincial director of religious affairs. 'They are making their jobs more difficult for themselves.' <br />
<a name='more'></a>Two days earlier, a soldier shot and injured one of Abdullahi’s co-workers in the abdomen as he approached a checkpoint. On that fall afternoon in Musa Muhammad’s neighborhood, Boko Haram militants ambushed and killed two soldiers on a nearby street. The security forces flooded in, rounding up youths, searching houses and firing guns in the air. They accused residents of being Boko Haram loyalists and harboring members. After the soldiers allowed Muhammad to stand up, he saw several bodies lying near a wall, he recalled. The corpse of his 29-year-old son, who owned a small store, had been thrown on top. ... The security forces have killed almost as many people as Boko Haram has, according to Human Rights Watch. They also have detained numerous victims without charges or trials, human rights activists say. 'They are worse than the enemy,' said Murtalla Muhammed, a lecturer at the University of Maiduguri. 'The whole image of the military has gone down here. They are seen as brutal.' The victims included the brother of Umar Muhammad, a 33-year-old technician who is not related to Musa. Soldiers accused him of being part of Boko Haram and interrogated him. He had no access to a lawyer. Then, his brother said, he was beaten to death in custody. The day after his son was killed, Musa Muhammad went to the morgue to pick up the body. One of the bullets has been shot point blank into his neck, he said. 'Who can I complain to?' Muhammad asked. 'Now, we fear both Boko Haram and the security forces.' He was too traumatized, he said, to wash his son's body as Muslim customs dictate."</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-64806267269747394072012-12-30T07:03:00.000-08:002013-01-21T22:51:54.942-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Pakistan)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Pakistan militants punish accused informers aiding drone attacks by taping their confessions and executions." (The New York Times)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/world/asia/drone-war-in-pakistan-spurs-militants-to-deadly-reprisals.html?ref=world"><b>Drone War Spurs Militants to Deadly Reprisals</b></a><br />
By Declan Walsh<br />
The New York Times, December 29, 2012<br />
"They are dead men talking, and they know it. Gulping nervously, the prisoners stare into the video camera, spilling tales of intrigue, betrayal and paid espionage on behalf of the United States. Some speak in trembling voices, a glint of fear in their eyes. Others look resigned. All plead for their lives. 'I am a spy and I took part in four attacks,' said Sidinkay, a young tribesman who said he was paid $350 to help direct CIA drones to their targets in Pakistan's tribal belt. Sweat glistened on his forehead; he rocked nervously as he spoke. 'Stay away from the Americans,' he said in an imploring voice. 'Stay away from their dollars.' Al Qaeda and the Taliban have few defenses against the American drones that endlessly prowl the skies over the bustling militant hubs of North and South Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, along the Afghan border. CIA missiles killed at least 246 people in 2012, most of them Islamist militants, according to watchdog groups that monitor the strikes. The dead included Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Qaeda ideologue and deputy leader. Despite the technological superiority of their enemy, however, the militants do possess one powerful countermeasure. For several years now, militant enforcers have scoured the tribal belt in search of informers who help the CIA find and kill the spy agency's jihadist quarry. <br />
<a name='more'></a>The militants' technique -- often more witch hunt than investigation -- follows a well-established pattern. Accused tribesmen are abducted from homes and workplaces at gunpoint and tortured. A sham religious court hears their case, usually declaring them guilty. Then they are forced to speak into a video camera. The taped confessions, which are later distributed on CD, vary in style and content. But their endings are the same: execution by hanging, beheading or firing squad. In Sidinkay's last moments, the camera shows him standing in a dusty field with three other prisoners, all blindfolded, illuminated by car headlights. A volley of shots rings out, and the three others are mowed down. But Sidinkay, apparently untouched, is left standing. For a tragic instant, the accused spy shuffles about, confused. Then fresh shots ring out and he, too, crumples to the ground. These macabre recordings offer a glimpse into a little-seen side of the drone war in Waziristan, a paranoid shadow conflict between militants and a faceless American enemy in which ordinary Pakistanis have often become unwitting victims. [...]"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-73358772173428746012012-12-22T08:31:00.001-08:002012-12-22T08:31:41.472-08:00WORK / MIGRATIONS (Malaysia)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/11/20121128142936201803.html">Worked to Death</a></b><br />
AlJazeera.com, October 30, 2012<br />
"Thousands of foreign workers have died in Malaysia in recent years from accidents, illnesses and suicide. They work in so-called '3D' conditions -- dirty, dangerous and difficult. Critics say the death rate is a result of slack safety standards, poor housing conditions and weak enforcement of laws to protect them. Last year, more than 1,000 foreign workers died from accidents, illnesses and suicide. Malaysia is the largest importer of labour in Asia. Migrant workers provide cheap labour in construction, manufacturing and plantation industries. There are more than three million foreign workers, of which nearly a third is undocumented. Most of the migrant workers come from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Nepal. Desperate to repay debts from the high recruitment agency fees and under financial pressure from their families back home, migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation. Many suffer non-payment of wages, abuse, serious injuries and even death. On this episode, the 101 East team meets those who risk it all to make a living in Malaysia and ask: Is enough being done to keep them safe?"</div>
Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-6485603134971913372012-09-03T21:21:00.003-07:002012-09-04T07:06:20.217-07:00WORK / FAMILY & SEXUALITY (Palestine)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Palestinian Sufian Abu Nada holds a picture of his son, Ihab Abu Nada, at his home in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Monday. " (Hatem Moussa/Associated Press)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/09/03/gaza-unemployment-self-immolation.html"><b>Jobless Gaza Man, 21, Dies after Setting Self on Fire</b></a><br />
Associated Press dispatch on CBC.ca, September 3, 2012<br />
"The death of a young Gaza man who set himself on fire because he could not find a job has sent shockwaves through this conservative territory and underscored growing despair among Palestinian youth. The self-immolation of 21-year-old Ihab Abu Nada was the first in Gaza, after a series of copycat deaths in the Middle East since a Tunisian youth set himself on fire in December 2010. That case triggered protests and revolutions that have swept across the Arab world, toppling dictatorships and touching off a civil war in Syria. Gaza, a crowded strip of land between Israel and Egypt, has never been wealthy. Unemployment has usually been over 20 per cent. Since the militant Hamas took over the territory in 2007, the economy has steadily worsened under an Israeli blockade. Youth unemployment hovers around 50 per cent, and a lack of hope is palpable -- many young Gaza men take cheap, powerful pain killers to take the edge of reality. Abu Nada's father, Sufian, 54, said the family has been struggling to get by on his civil servant's salary of about $220 a month. On Saturday night, Sufian Abu Nada said he was pleading and arguing with his son to try find work. 'He told his mother: "Tell my father I'm going to find work,"' a sobbing Abu Nada told a Gaza radio station on Monday. 'My eye is broken, my heart is broken, my love.' Shortly after, the young man set himself on fire beside the morgue at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital. On Sunday afternoon, he died of his wounds.<br />
<a name='more'></a>In the radio interview, Abu Nada described his son as 'like all the other youth of Gaza.' News of the young man's death spread quickly through Gaza, and residents emailed each other a voice recording of Abu Nada's father sobbing on the radio. 'When a young man burns himself because of his suffering and poverty ... it means we have ticking bombs needing to be defused,' said a young law student Rami Saleh, 23. The family lived in a crowded seaside slum in Gaza City. Of four children, two worked part time as cleaners. The father told Palestinian news service Maan that his son sold bags of potato chips on the street sometimes, but he was frequently harassed by Hamas police. After rent and utility bills, the father said he $50 for food, barely enough to stretch through the month. He spoke of shame going through the markets, unsure what he could afford. [...]"Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-11223860040959724952012-08-27T16:37:00.002-07:002012-08-27T16:43:15.991-07:00FAMILY & SEXUALITY / WORK (Kenya)<a href="http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/Empowerment+women+must+leave+behind/7148951/story.html"><b>Empowerment of Women Must Not Leave Men Behind</b></a><br />
By Craig Kielburger and Marc Kielburger<br />
The Edmonton Journal, August 27, 2012<br />
"In Emori Joi, Kenya, a generation of men is idle. Without livestock to protect and raiders to repel, they are unneeded as protectors and unable to be providers. Still, each morning they leave their homes and return in the evening as though they were out working. 'They are trying to hide their insecurities and make it look as though they're at least trying to provide,' says 'Mama' Jane Marindany. 'Surely they are walking around with a heavy heart.' With little to boost the pride and self-worth of village men, alcoholism and domestic violence are on the rise. Meanwhile, girls are being educated and women like Marindany are building their own businesses, providing for their families. Women's empowerment has taken the development world by storm. Billions are poured every year into education for girls, women's health and livelihood programs for women. And this is an incredibly good thing. According to the United Nations, women and girls account for six out of 10 of the world's most impoverished people, and two-thirds of the world's illiterate. We've seen the impact on entire communities when women are empowered. Every year that a girl spends in school increases her family's income by up to 20 per cent. Women who earn an income invest 90 per cent back in their families. But the men of Emori Joi are a stark example of a question that is arising in communities - developed and developing alike - around the world: in an age of growing women's empowerment, what about the men? Sipping tea in her home, Marindany talks fondly of another time, when 'Baba' -- her father -- would sit by the door of their hut, spear and bow beside him. His role was to protect the family and their precious livestock from wild animals and raiders from neighbouring villages. Today, villages no longer raid one another and big predators are scarce. Loss of land to development and climate change is reducing herds and the work for men.<br />
<a name='more'></a>But Marindany has seized many opportunities. After marriage, she moved to her husband's village, where poverty and gender inequality were much higher than where she had come from. She launched a women's group and started a communal savings and loans initiative. The women are involved in alternative income projects like jewelry-making and beekeeping. Four of the women own dairy cows and the group has a long-term plan to build their own dairy by 2017. With her income, Marindany has moved her family from a mud hut to a new brick home. Yet these achievements have been difficult for men, explains Sitonik, a male leader in Marindany's village. ... We know from experience it is relatively easy to find donors to build a school for girls but for a boys' school, not so much. 'We want both boys and girls to go to school,' Marindany says. 'If a girl studies more than a boy, or vice versa, it isn't equal and how can they be good spouses? Live good lives? Provide good role models?' Educated boys make better fathers. Better fathers who have a strong role in the family and pride in themselves will be more supportive of the endeavours of their wives and daughters. In short, women's empowerment is enhanced when men are not left behind. Marindany and the women of Emori Joi have realized this. They have supported Sitonik and the men of the village in forming their own men's groups. The men started a savings and loans initiative to bolster their incomes and support business initiatives. They have a group agriculture project growing tomatoes, carrots and onions. The men's and women's groups have regular exchanges to learn from each other. Meanwhile, the women are teaching boys to share in the chores at home. In Emori Joi, a few weeks ago, for the first time we saw boys hauling water."Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-39043004643529717642012-07-12T05:47:00.000-07:002012-08-27T16:38:14.967-07:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"A member of the Free Syria Army walks past a destroyed Syrian forces tank in northern Aleppo province." (Lolo/AFP/Getty Images)</i></td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/11/syria-derat-azza-rebel-village"><b>In Northern Syria, People Forced to Scavenge for Fuel and Food</b></a><br />
By Martin Chulov<br />
The Guardian, July 11, 2012<br />
"Fuel oil for cooking began to run out in Derat Azza about a month ago. Now, nightly meals in this village near Syria's second city of Aleppo are prepared with scavenged firewood in the courtyards of people's homes. Thin black columns of smoke start to rise at dusk and are soon absorbed by the gathering dark. Then the only lights visible in this blacked out village on the outskirts of Aleppo are the orange flames of the cooking fires. Most people here say they have not received a salary since 2011 and even the basics of life are well beyond their reach. Where fuel oil can be found it costs about £9 a litre. Meat is also prohibitively expensive, so the people eat eggs or potatoes. Even these are now in short supply. Bootleg petrol costs around £2 a litre, more than 10-times its pre-revolution price, and the few cars that move in Derat Azza run on improvised benzine, crackling and thumping their way around Derat Azza's narrow lanes like cartoon jalopies. The story is the same across a swathe of northern Syria. Villages under siege, dangerous roads and scarce fuel have slowed commerce to a halt. Apart from the crash of the occasional artillery shell, the opposition-held village is eerily quiet. After the paper factory was shelled early this month almost all women and children left. Only men of fighting age remain. Earlier that morning, in a dark, dank meeting room below street level, the weary guerillas of Derat Azza were rallying for another day guarding their town. Their headquarters is a vast, gloomy expanse of upturned plastic chairs, foam mattresses and Kalashnikovs scattered to all points like children's toys. In better times, it acts as a wedding venue and a focal point of community life. A dried and brittle bouquet dated March 2011 lies long-discarded against a wall. Two haggard men sat behind a wooden desk, one of them tapping a Chinese-made walkie-talkie, trying to get it to work. 'Mahmoud!' he yelled into it, trying to summon the local guerrilla leader. 'Report to the desk immediately!' Mahmoud eventually stirred at 1pm and roused five of his colleagues. All, like him, were students from nearby Aleppo university, although they had not turned up for weeks. Nor did they think that their admission to one of Syria's most coveted academic institutions amounted to much anymore. 'The revolution means more than the university,' said Ahmed, 22, a gangly fresh-faced chemical engineering undergraduate. 'I didn't go to my exams and nor did most people. This is a price that I'm more than willing to pay for now.' <br />
<a name='more'></a>Another man, Haithem, had a small pistol strapped to his hip. 'The head of the faculty carried one of these too,' Haithem said. 'Can you imagine that, a lecturer with a gun? He loves Bashar [al-Assad, the Syrian president] from the bottom of his heart and he will fail all of us in the revolution [in our exams] or tell the Shabiha where to find us.' According to the students, the Shabiha, the regime militia that has been at the vanguard of many atrocities since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, has had a central role in intimidating them during regular student protests in the city. 'They stand near the gates with some of the people from air force intelligence,' said a third student, who did not want to be named. 'They pick their targets and they go after them. It's usually anyone connected to the protests, but sometimes it's just girls.' He showed his right forearm, which was disfigured by four bulging scars. 'They caught me then they stabbed me,' he said. 'I was rescued by girls.' Grainy mobile phone footage of girls from the university wrenching the male student from the grasp of the militia earlier this year has been etched into folklore on campus. For a time, the footage seemed to embolden the students in their war of attrition against the security forces. The incident happened in February, when many on campus believed they had an unstoppable momentum for change. But activism or defiance had never before been a rite of passage during student life on Syrian campuses. Students and security forces remain locked in a standoff and teaching in the faculties has largely ceased. 'It has become relentless ever since then,' said Mahmoud. 'Yes, we can still fight with them and protest, and yes around 60% of the university is with the revolution, including many of the lecturers. But most are staying quiet for now. It's too much for them to do what we have done. Now if I went back to Aleppo I would be caught and put in prison, or killed. There are hundreds of checkpoints there. Some of them are only 20 metres apart. The city is locked down.' Instead the university rebels remain on the outskirts of the city, where there are fewer checkpoints but where it is also harder to find food. [...]"Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-44651841858816921612012-03-06T08:15:00.001-08:002012-03-06T08:15:05.794-08:00GOVERNANCE & CONFLICT (Syria)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/lf7scYJCECVGbPUlJPf0Sg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNDI7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/b3ffb18674c3fe06080f6a706700280d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/lf7scYJCECVGbPUlJPf0Sg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNDI7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/b3ffb18674c3fe06080f6a706700280d.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>"Syrian refugees walk outside their camp, just at the border with Syria, in Reyhanli, Turkey, Sunday, March 4, 2012. Some 10,000 Syrian refugees have trickled into neighboring Turkey over the past year fleeing fighting in Syria." (AP Photo/Gaia Anderson)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17259471"><b>Syria Eyewitness: Homs Refugees Tell of "Slaughter"</b></a><br />
By Paul Wood<br />
BBC Online, March 5, 2012<br />
"The car headlights picked out a ragged group of men, women and children walking up the road towards us. Night had just fallen. There was a bitterly cold wind. They had endured a month of bombardment in Baba Amr then fled, panicking, before ground troops arrived. 'We're homeless,' a woman shouted. 'Why? Because we asked for freedom?' She said they had been walking for three days. Their journey was so long because they walked across fields and through orchards to avoid the army checkpoints. A terrible fear has seized people here about what the government forces are doing now that they are back in control. In a nearby house we sat with six women and their 17 children. They had arrived that day. There were no men. 'We were walking out altogether until we reached the checkpoint,' said one of the women, Um Abdo. 'Then they separated us from the men. They put hoods on their heads and took them away.' Where do you think they are now, I asked. The women replied all at once: 'They will be slaughtered.' We met the Ibrahim family by chance while filming an aid delivery of cooking oil. They told us that on Friday, in the Jobar district of Homs, they had witnessed a massacre. Ahmed Ibrahim told me that 36 men and boys were taken away. Among them were four members of his own family including his 12-year-old son, Hozaifa. All were dead now, he said.<br />
<a name='more'></a>He said he had seen everything, lying flat behind some trees. He told me: 'There is a major checkpoint near our house. Reinforcements arrived there. They brought Shabiha (the 'ghosts' or paramilitaries). They began arresting all the men in the area so I crouched down in the orchards just beside my house. They started beating them up. Then they moved them into a street next to a school. They killed them all. I saw it. I was 50 to 100 metres away. Their hands were tied behind their backs. A soldier held each one still on the ground with his boot; another soldier came to cut their throats. I could hear their screams.' He said the victims included his son, two brothers and a nephew. He thought he could count 36 bodies in the street -- the number of men and boys who had been detained. 'The army took the bodies. They are afraid that ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] would come in so they destroyed the evidence.' His wife was inside the house when the soldiers came. She said: 'They knocked on the door and said if we didn't open up they would shoot through the walls. So we let them in and they took all males aged 12 and older. I went out to ask about my son but they shot at me. After they had killed them, they came back and searched us for mobile phones [looking for any video]. They threatened us. They said: 'We can come back at any time.' I felt that we were all going to die. Other families came to ask for their men and I told them that they had been slaughtered. I wish I had never gone out to witness that scene. We fled as fast as we could, leaving everything behind.' Their niece, 16-year-old Noor, was in another house. Her father -- one of Ahmed Ibrahim's brothers -- was killed. She said: 'My father went to open the door. I told him: "Don't. Run away." He said "Why? I haven't done anything wrong." He opened the door. They took him. I was clinging on to him but they took him anyway. As well as my father, they took my uncle, my cousin and my brother. I went outside and saw them pushing them to the ground. Then they killed them. I heard my father shout "God is great" as he died. The others, too. The soldiers shoved us back inside with their guns.' We do not know, yet, the truth of such allegations. But one former soldier involved in the Baba Amr operation told us that prisoners were routinely murdered. He said he had witnessed one summary execution. [...]"Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2303085621314376087.post-11553386401427277862012-03-05T08:56:00.002-08:002012-09-03T21:22:45.428-07:00WORK / FAMILY & SEXUALITY (Egypt)<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-delta-debt-20120227,0,7020490.story"><b>Debts Closed in on Egypt Man Who Died Hanged in His Jail Cell</b></a><br />
By Jeffrey Fleishman<br />
The Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2012<br />
"His mother visited him hours before he twisted the edges of his blanket into a rope. 'You'll be out soon,' she told him. 'We paid bail.' 'There's a problem,' he said. 'I owe more.' He hadn't been in his village in months, a scrap of a place tucked amid fields that stretch past the canal to the paved road. The boys on this land learn early to sharpen plow blades and make scarecrows out of grain sacks. It's cold when the rain blows and tough to make a living on, even for a man who cuts furrows. He came home, but in a way no one wanted. 'I guess his life just went black,' said the detective who was called the day guards found Shawadfi Mohamed in his cell. 'Every time he settled one debt there were others waiting for him,' said his wife, Wafaa. Carpenter. Driver. Farmhand. Mohamed was all of them. But they weren't enough in the frayed economy of the Nile Delta. Men running for parliament came up here and said things would get better; maybe they will, but they haven't for decades. No one from Mohamed's village went to the revolution last year in Cairo's Tahrir Square; it was too far and there was no money to get down there and back. People talk about a new Egypt, but it hasn't found the delta yet. The detective, a big man with a mustache who, as is customary with police officials here, asked not to be named, moved his hand in front of him like a plane in a nosedive: 'It was bad before the revolution, now it's worse,' he said, sitting in the station house. 'People can't afford anything unless it's on installments. They don't have birth control, they have a lot of kids, and they have to pay for a lot of weddings and it's all tied up in installments.' A man in the delta is not a man until he's married. Mohamed met Wafaa, a girl from another village, seven years ago. She caught his eye and he went to her family, who said yes. He started borrowing money for the dowry, the wedding, and then the children came -- three boys in five years. He thought about going to work in Libya, like many others in the delta before Libya had its own revolution, but the police wouldn't grant him a passport with all his debts. 'He loved his wife and kids,' said Hamid, Mohamed's uncle. 'He just wanted better for them.' Mohamed had $5,000 worth of IOUs spread out for miles. In this stingy land, it was a sum impossible to make good on unless a man turned to darker things. [...]"Adam Jones, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/02040417664765882878noreply@blogger.com0