UN: Refugee numbers at highest in 19 years
Escape routes in focus as thousands risk their lives to escape war, unrest and poverty and reach distant shores.
Last Modified: 27 Oct 2013 08:45
The UN says there are now more refugees than at any time since 1994. Thousands of asylum-seekers, mainly from Afghanistan and the Middle East, head to Indonesia each year to make the dangerous voyage across the Indian ocean to Australia.
They are seeking a new life, fleeing war, political unrest, and poverty.
The influx of asylum-seekers is a major political issue both in Indonesia and Australia, particularly as Indonesia has not signed up to the 1951 UN Refugee convention and does not have to accept refugees.
Australia, on the other hand, is a signatory.
The asylum-seekers pay thousands of dollars to people smugglers for a hazardous boat ride to Christmas Island.
EU member states make a distinction between asylum seekers and refugees, with asylum seekers defined as people submitting a request for refugee status.
Roma – the unwanted Europeans
Suspicion of people who are poor and homeless is fuelled by rumours of stolen children and French bungling over the expulsion of a Roma family
JOHN LICHFIELD Author Biography LE HAVRE SUNDAY 27 OCTOBER 2013
Samuel lives in the derelict changing rooms of a disused university football pitch with his mother, father and eight brothers and sisters. He is one month old.
To visit Samuel, you pass through a jagged hole in a concrete wall. There is no electricity and no running water. Heating is provided by a wood stove made from an oil drum.
Four families, including eight adults and 20 children, live in, or around, the derelict changing cabin beside the weed-strewn pitch. Norica, aged 10, with blue eyes and light brown hair, proudly shows off her family’s home: a hut the size of a small hen house constructed by her father from scavenged wood.
DRC says it has M23 rebels on the run
As the DRC army and M23 rebels clash, Rwanda is asked for help in disarming the insurgents.
27 OCT 2013 06:40 REUTERS
The Congolese army said it made significant advances against eastern rebel forces in a second day of fierce fighting on Saturday and called on neighbouring Rwanda to help disarm the insurgents.
The army clashed with M23 rebels on Friday for the first time in two months after peace talks in Uganda broke down this week. Rwanda accused the army of firing a shell into its territory, sparking fears its military might intervene.
M23 said in a statement on Saturday that the army had launched a “generalised attack” on several fronts but that the fighting was turning in its favour.
Bahrain: We use tear gas on protesters ‘appropriately’
By Mahmoud Habboush, Reuters
Bahrain has defended its use of tear gas after rights groups criticized the Gulf kingdom’s reported plans to buy 1.6 million canisters of the material.
Local and international rights groups have accused the authorities of using tear gas excessively and of firing canisters directly at protesters or into cars and houses where they can cause serious injuries.
“Tear gas is non-lethal and it is used appropriately by the police, in compliance with the law and in full adherence with the internationally accepted standards contained in the Bahrain police code of conduct,” the government spokesman’s office said in an email to Reuters.
Argentina’s ailing president faces tough midterm congressional election
By Hugh Bronstein
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez is expected to lose some of her congressional clout in Sunday’s midterm election as the ailing leader faces complaints over galloping inflation and a weakening currency.
Re-elected in 2011 on promises of increasing state control of Latin America’s No. 3 economy, Fernandez’s political coattails have been shortened by inflation, clocked by private economists at 25 percent, while heavy-handed currency controls and falling central bank reserves dent confidence.
Voters will choose half of the lower house of Congress and a third of the Senate in Sunday’s vote.
Egypt crackdown complaint against Nobel laureate tossed out by judge
By Laura King
CAIRO – An Egyptian judge Saturday threw out a legal complaint against Nobel laureate and prominent former diplomat Mohamed El Baradei, who had been accused of breaching the public trust for quitting as vice president to protest a violent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
The case had illustrated the extreme sensitivities surrounding any criticism of the army and the country’s military-backed government in the wake of the July overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and a subsequent bloody dispersal of his followers. Up to 1,000 demonstrators were killed by Egyptian security forces who charged into Brotherhood-backed protest camps.