Stories about Humanitarian Response from June, 2010
Myanmar: Food ration cutback in refugee center
The Democratic Voice of Burma reported that food ration for refugees in the Thailand-Myanmar will be reduced because of budget shortfall. There are more than 140,000 refugees in the border.
Brazil: “Tsunami” hits some of the poorest riverside cities
At least 46 people have been killed and an estimated hundreds are missing after torrential floods swept through states in the north-east Brazil, in the worst environmental tragedy in the local population's memory.
Afghanistan: Drug use keeps on rising
Nick Fielding reviews a report from the UN's Office of Drug Control, which indicates that almost a million people in Afghanistan – roughly 8 per cent of the population between 15 and 64 years old – are drug addicts.
Israel: Dubious Thanks to USAID
JoeSettler posts a photo of a sign he often passes that reads, “This [road] is a gift from the American people to the Palestinian people.” “What I think that USAID overlooked,” he comments, “Is that Jews also use this road regularly.” According to their website, USAID has donated $1 billion...
Lebanon’s Sex Industry
“We all know it exists but one reporter actually went into the trouble of investigating how ‘super night clubs’ work,” Lebanese blogger Mustapha at Beirut Spring writes in this post.
Argentina: Children of the Dictatorship speak out in Interactive French Documentary
The Blogtrotters are a collaborative video blog from France who in their 9th project are travelling to Argentina to make Hijos, a collective documentary on the missing children of the dictatorship, trying to trace back their origins to their disappeared parents.
Russia: New Websites to Promote Modernist Islam
Paul Goble writes [EN] about the launch of two websites islam-portal.ru and soyuzmusulmanok.ru, that promote modernist Islam. Two websites, Goble suggests, illustrate both attempts to seek connections with younger Muslim population, while competing with fundamentalist Islamists, and to prove Tatars as “intellectual leaders of the Muslim umma of Russia”.
Kenya: Bloggers react to Uhuru Park bomb blast
Six people were killed and 75 injured in an explosion at a political rally in Nairobi on Sunday. The rally was organized by the "No" team, which opposes the passing of the new constitution. Here are reactions from Kenyan bloggers.
Kyrgyzstan: Info Wrangling on Osh Unrest
Christian Bleuer reviews press and expert opinions on the dramatic developments in southern Kyrgyzstan, focusing on the conflict roots and
India: Economic Blockade In Manipur State
The northeastern state of Manipur in India is facing a humanitarian crisis with the price of necessities soaring up as it has been subjected to a blockade of the National Highway 39 (NH-39) connecting Imphal (Manipur) with Kohima (Nagaland).
Kyrgyzstan: Provocateurs seen behind ethnic clashes
Clashes between the ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek population in the southern Kyrgyzstan have developed into large-scale violence. After three nights of shooting in the isolated conflict zone - the population still has limited access to telephony, electricity and food.
Haiti: Profiting from Disaster?
The Haitian Blogger suggests that “Haiti's calamity is a windfall for everyone, except Haitians living in Haiti in the camps.”
Laos: Korean star visits schools
Korean actor Jang Dong-gun visited schools in Laos where he gave free meals and starred in an anti-poverty documentary by the UN World Food Program
Egypt: Iara Lee's Flotilla Attack Footage
Egyptian blogger Zeinobia posts Iara Lee's one-hour footage from the Gaza-bound flotilla on the night it was attacked by Israeli commandos here.
South Africa: Soccer and Social Change
Lisa Kays, writing for GlobalGoodness, tackles the role of playing soccer/football in promoting social change in Africa.
Brazil/Israel: Open letter to the Israeli government
“Now, after the coward attack in international waters carried out by Israeli military against the fleet of humanitarian aid to Gaza” says Maria Frô [pt], “again [the movie-maker Sílvio] Tendler manifests” in an open letter to the Israeli government.
India:Taking responsibility for the Bhopal disaster
Dilip D'souza at Death Ends Fun is bewildered by some of the reactions to the Bhopal verdict and writes that the blame for the travesty of justice in Bhopal lies squarely at India's feet.
Chad: Regional Conference on the Issue of Child Soldiers
A conference on the prevention of enrollment of child soldiers took place in Ndjamena (fr). Mak reports that there are between 7,000 to 10,000 child soldiers in Chad (fr).
India: Conflict in Meghalaya
Dinesh Wagle pens an in-depth analysis of what he feels are the reasons behind the ever-widening conflict between Khasis and Nepali migrant workers/Gorkhas in the North-Eastern Indian State of Meghalaya.
India: Bhopal Gas Tragedy Verdict – too little too late?
More than 25 years after India's worst ever Industrial disaster, a court in Bhopal has pronounced a guilty verdict on the Indian arm of Union Carbide (UCIL) and also convicted 8 former UCIL officials for negligence in the large-scale, Bhopal gas leak tragedy. Bloggers react.
Iraq: Who's Going to be the Next Prime Minister?
Although the Iraqi parliamentary elections took place in the 7th of March, the two major blocs according to the poll results, are still not able to agree on a single candidate to be named as the new prime minister. Iraqi bloggers have their say on the deadlock in this post.
