Humanitarian news

PORT OF SPAIN, Jan 6 (IPS) - When 15-year-old Devika Lalman left her home a few days before Christmas to buy school supplies for the new academic term, her parents had taken all the necessary precautions to ensure her safety.

ATHENS, Jan 5 (IPS) - Around midnight Dec. 22, Decheva Elena Kuneva, a Bulgarian living in Greece since 2001, finished her shift and made her way home. For four years she had worked as a cleaner in the city railways, as employee of a company contracted by the public enterprise.

COLOMBO, Jan 2 (IPS) - If the global financial crisis slams the brakes on worker remittances from the Middle East, Sri Lanka’s top foreign exchange earner, it could severely exacerbate this country’s economic woes, analysts say.

MELBOURNE, Dec 31 (IPS) - Refugee rights organisations have criticised the Rudd government’s decision to hold suspected asylum seekers in a controversial detention centre on an isolated Australian island in the Indian Ocean.

MANILA, Dec 29 (IPS) - Diovie Arcilla is happy to be home for Christmas. This Singapore-based computer programmer values being with her family and friends in the holiday season. But news that some of her colleagues have been retrenched is making Arcilla anxious.

SEATTLE, Washington, Dec 23 (IPS) - Outside a Home Depot store, it's a typical December morning in Seattle: cool and gray with a light sprinkle falling. At 7:30, about 50 men wait at the entrances to the parking lot. Most wear jackets, jeans and work shoes, and some carry day packs with tools, water and lunch. They stand silently with hands in pockets, alone or in knots of three or four, baseball caps or sweatshirt hoods deployed against the chilly mist.

BRUSSELS, Dec 18 (IPS) - Should the amount of aid that African countries receive from Europe be linked to their efforts to prevent their nationals moving to this continent?

MADRID, Dec 12 (IPS) - The Spanish government announced a new plan Friday to combat human trafficking, which includes a measure for the immediate seizure of the assets of anyone convicted of involvement in such activities, in particular, those who force foreign women into prostitution.

KATHMANDU, Dec 9 (IPS) - Tej Bahadur Roila, a member of the Nepal army, is unable to return to his home in the Khotang district of Eastern Nepal because his property, seized by Maoist rebels in the middle of the decade-long civil war they waged against the monarchy, has not been returned.

ATHENS, Dec 5 (IPS) - Fifteen migrants woke up Friday to the 25th day of their hunger strike in Crete's second largest municipality Hania. They all have been living and working in Hania for a long time.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Dec 3 (IPS) - When Jamaica's chief justice disqualified Daryl Vaz from sitting in Parliament last April, it brought into focus the complications surrounding dual citizenship, not only here but throughout the entire English-speaking Caribbean.

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 (IPS) - After winning a gruelling 13-year court battle to avoid being jailed on charges of maliciously publishing false news, Malaysia's best-known human rights champion seeks a political career to continue defending migrant workers and other vulnerable sections of society.

PENANG, Nov 26 (IPS) - The global economic slowdown is slowly creeping onto Malaysian shores leaving many worried about the impact it will have on workers.

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (IPS) - Leading civil rights groups Monday denounced the rise in hate crimes taking place in the United States, especially against Hispanics, and called for passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act (LLEHCP) to ensure federal jurisdiction when local officials fail to act.

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (IPS) - An elite inter-American commission sponsored by a think tank that is considered close to likely key policy-makers in the administration of President-elect Barack Obama is calling for sharp break in U.S. policy toward Latin America, a substantial opening toward Cuba, greater diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, and a major reassessment of its war on drugs.

SAN DIEGO, California, Nov 19 (IPS) - Another chapter in U.S.-Mexico border relations is about to close. In the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is completing construction of a 22-kilometre triple fence along the San Diego-Tijuana border.

BERLIN, Nov 18 (IPS) - The lighting is dim. The murmur of water can be heard, the ship’s horn blows and the gangway unfolds. The long journey of the German emigrant is about to begin.

BANGKOK, Nov 17 (IPS) - On top of 60 years of military occupation, the Karen people of Burma are now facing severe impairment of their environmental and cultural foundations, say activists.

KABUL Monday, December 29, 2008 (IRIN) - Iran is to suspend large-scale deportations of illegal Afghan migrants until March 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) has said.

FRANCISTOWN Wednesday, December 24, 2008 (IRIN) - The streets of Botswana's Francistown, about 110km from Zimbabwe's western border, are teeming with Zimbabwean shoppers ahead of Christmas.