Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’
Food inflation threatens refugee crisis : Financial Times
Written by Editors on June 18, 2008 – 2:25 am- Almost half the global refugee population is accounted for by about 3m Afghans, mostly in Pakistan and Iran, and more than 2m Iraqis, mainly in Syria and Jordan. There are also about 500,000 refugees each from Colombia, Sudan and Somalia.
- These figures exclude an estimated 4.6m Palestinian refugees, who are the responsibility of the UN Relief and Works Agency.
- The report refutes claims that refugees are “flooding” industrialised countries, noting that six out of seven flee to neighbouring states.
Soaring food prices and the effects of global warming threaten to drive ever more people from their homes, the head of the United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday.
The UNHCR said the number of refugees worldwide had risen for a second year running. Displaced people living outside their home country rose by almost 500,000 last year to 11.4m at the end of 2007, mainly due to the “volatile situation in Iraq”, the agency said in its annual Global Trends report.
The number of people displaced internally by conflict or persecution increased to 26m from 24.4m at the end of 2006. Another 25m have been forced from their homes by natural disasters.
António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “After a five-year decline in the number of refugees between 2001 and 2005, we have now seen two years of increases, and that’s a concern.”
Tags: Afghanistan, Economic disruption, IDPs (Internal Refugees), inflation, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, Refugees, Syria, UNHCR, WHO
Posted in Early Warning, Human Rights, Society And Economy | No Comments »
A reincarnation of the Baghdad Pact
Written by Editors on April 25, 2008 – 4:57 amIs history repeating itself, asks Ayman El-Amir*
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has completed the first phase of negotiations with the US over the long-term strategic agreement that will govern relations between the occupying power and occupied Iraq for decades to come. It will be supplemented by a “status of forces” agreement outlining the privileges and immunities of the 50,000-strong US military force that will be stationed in Iraq well beyond the formal withdrawal of the occupation army. Iraq will thus be incorporated into the “Axis of the Good” that includes the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council where the US has developed and maintains sprawling military bases and other facilities, encircling Iran and controlling the southern entrance to the Straits of Hormuz. Fifty years after the demise of the Baghdad Pact (1955-1958) the military alliance has not only been reborn, but is more expansive, with US Central Command at the helm and Iran replacing the former Soviet Union as the adversary.
In 1955, when the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between the former Soviet Union and the US had reached fever pitch, the Arab world was also undergoing deep transformation triggered by the Nasser-led 1952 Egyptian revolution. Egypt’s emerging role as a beacon of national liberation in the Arab region and in Africa was coveted by both superpowers though for different reasons. The Soviet Union, reversing the old-era Stalinist approach, wanted to embrace Third World revolutionary movements as a bulwark against the old imperial and colonial powers. The US secretary of state at the time, John Foster Dulles, was obsessed with the idea of blocking Communist expansion towards the Middle East which occupied strategic routes, waterways, and possessed burgeoning oil wealth.
Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Ahram, Baghdad, Egypt, Gulf Cooperation Council, Gulf States, History, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Nasser, Qatar, River Nile, Saudi, Turkey
Posted in Analysis Briefings Commentary, Iraq, Middle East, Politics and Security | No Comments »