Femicide and The Drug War's Invisible Victims (PERSPECTIVE)

(On The Edge, a documentary covering the brutal murders of hundreds of young women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico since 1993. {2006})

By Laura Carlsen

There are many kinds of war. The classic image of a uniformed soldier kissing mom good-bye to risk his life on the battlefield has changed dramatically. In today’s wars, it’s more likely that mom will be the one killed.

UNIFEM states that by the mid-1990s, 90% of war casualties were civilians-- mostly women and children.

Mexico’s drug war is a good example of the new wars on civilian populations that blur the lines between combatants and place entire societies in the line of fire. Of the more than 50,000 people killed in drug war-related violence, the vast majority are civilians. President Felipe Calderón claims that 90% of the victims were linked to drug cartels. But how does he know? In a country where only 2% of crimes are investigated, tried, and sentenced, the government pulled this figure out of its sleeve.

There is no official information on why these thousands were killed. When their bodies are found in unmarked mass graves, no one even knows who they were. With violence the norm, executions can—and do--target grassroots leaders, human rights defenders, indigenous peoples, and rebellious youth under the cloak of the drug war.

(PHOTO: Victim's families hope for justice/FP) Not Just Homicide

There are also war tolls beyond the body counts. The homicide number misses the disappeared, the thousands whose bodies--dead or alive--are never found to be counted. And it hides the mutilation of lives caused by “collateral damage”: the loss of loved ones, families forced from their homes, permanent injury, orphans and widows, sexual abuse, lives lived in fear.

These costs fall primarily on the shoulders of women--the mothers, daughters, and sisters who are left with the nearly impossible task of seeking answers and redress in a justice system outpaced by the violence and overrun by the corruption. They are often re-victimized by government agencies that ignore, reject, or stifle their pleas for justice.

“Families that demand that our children be found face all kinds of threats… the loss of our property, isolation, rejection by our own families,” said Araceli Rodríguez, a mother whose son, a young policeman, was disappeared on the job. His police unit refuses to give information on his disappearance.  “I wake up and find that it’s not a nightmare, that his absence is real and the impunity is also real.”

It’s rare to hear the voices of the women who bear the brunt of the drug war. Their pain doesn’t make headlines. Some need anonymity to remain alive. Many have been granted protective measures by the government or international human rights organizations because of the extreme threats they face.

Telling Stories

Despite all these difficulties, some 70 women told their stories amid tears and despite fear for their lives in Mexico City on January 22. The meeting called by the Nobel Women’s Initiative brought an international delegation led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams together with Mexican women victims of the violence and women human rights defenders.

From the sketchy statistics available, women make up a relatively small proportion of the murdered in Mexico, but they are the majority of citizens who denounce disappearances, murders, and human rights violations in the drug war. They work on the front lines of defending communities and human rights. For their efforts, they become targets themselves. In Mexico, six prominent women human rights defenders have been murdered in the past two years.

(PHOTO: Nobel Women's Initiative delegation to Mexico/NWI)The last report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders recognized that threats and especially “explicit death threats against women human rights defenders are one of the main forms of violence in the region, with more than half coming from Latin America, most of those (27) from Mexico.”

Sometimes it’s the drug cartels that seek to silence women activists. But a recent survey of Mexican women human rights defenders revealed that they cite the government (national, state, and local) and its security forces as responsible in 55% of cases of violence and threats of violence to women defenders. Among government officials charged with public safety and justice, they encounter at best indifference and at worst death threats and attacks. A human rights defender from the state of Coahuila explained that searching for a disappeared loved one implies “always having to be in the hell of the institutions, which are often infiltrated by crime.”

Gender-based violence including femicide has skyrocketed in the context of the overall violence.

The number of femicides in Chihuahua since sending the army in has risen to 837 for the period 2008-2011 June - nearly double the total femicides in 1993-2007. Women rights defenders report that the vast majority of threats and acts of violence against them include gender-based violence.

Silent No More

Olga Esparza, whose daughter Monica disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 2009, explains through her tears that the government simply doesn’t care. “We’re the ones who have to carry out the investigations, with our own resources.” She adds that government officials often add insult to injury, “They say she’s probably just gone off with her boyfriend or she’s a prostitute or drug addict.” In her case, as with so many others, there’s no investigation, no results, no justice.

(PHOTO: Keeping memories alive/Dominio Público)Another woman described how her work with indigenous communities led to her rape and torture by police agents. She continues to live in terror due to threats against her life and her family.

Alma Gomez of the Center for the Human Rights of Women in Chihuahua summed up what she sees in the center, “Women are the invisible victims, we are always at risk in this military and police occupation. We know of gang rapes by security forces that the women don’t even report; arbitrary arrests; women who make the rounds between army barracks and city morgues searching for their sons, fathers, or husbands… We are the spoils of war in a war we didn’t ask for and we don’t want.”

“Victim” is really the wrong word for these women. The mother whose son disappeared more than two years ago said, “In the struggle to find my son, I joined the peace movement. I learned that I can transform my pain into a collective force and together we can help more people to have a voice and to now be empowered to defend their rights.”

Valentina Rosendo, a Me’phaa indigenous woman from the State of Guerrero, was raped by soldiers and took her case all the way up to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights. She sums up the reason for participating in the Nobel Women’s forum, “It’s really hard to speak out, but it’s more painful to keep quiet.” 

- Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Program for the Center for International Policy in Mexico City. Originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Related click here 

Amidst diplomatic tensions, UK Royal Navy plans to send warship to Falklands (AKA the Malvinas)

(PHOTO: Foreign UK Secretary William Hague & the UK Dauntless/TELEGRAPH) One of the UK Royal Navy’s most powerful new warships, the HMS Dauntless, is to be sent to patrol the South Atlantic including the Falkland Islands (AKA the Malvinas Islands) after the latest diplomatic tensions between Buenos Aires and London, the UK's Royal Navy Senior Press Officer confirmed to the BuenosAiresHerald.com.

The HMS Dauntless will be deployed on her maiden mission to the South Atlantic at the end of March, just days before the 30th anniversary of the Malvinas War. Sister ship HMS Daring has already been sent to the Gulf for her first mission amid heightened tensions with Iran over threats by Tehran to block a busy shipping lane.

However the British Ministry of Defence has said the deployment was long planned to replace frigate HMS Montrose and not a riposte to increased tensions over the sovereignty of the islands.

"The Royal Navy has had a continuous presence in the South Atlantic for many years. The deployment of HMS DAUNTLESS to the South Atlantic has been long planned, is entirely routine and replaces another ship on patrol," UK's Royal Navy Senior Press Office Simon Smith stressed.

Although the spokesman rejected suggestions the decision to send the ultra-modern destroyer to the region represented an escalation of the UK's position, the sending comes amid a diplomatic war of words over renewed Argentine claims of sovereignty, and with UK Prime Minister David Cameron accusing Argentina of "colonialism".

With crews of 180, the HMS Dauntless is part of the new 45s type vessels the Royal Navy is to deploy on international waters.

It was built with a futuristic design that makes it difficult to detect using radar. It is armed with high-tech Sea Viper anti-air missiles and can carry 60 troops.
 
They also have a large flight deck which can accommodate helicopters the size of a Chinook as well as take on board 700 people in the case of a civilian evacuation.

---This article originally appeared in the 1/31/12 edition of the Buenos Aires Herald.

`Resilient People, Resilient Planet': New UN Report says World is running out of time, resources.

(PHOTO: Global Greenhouse Warming.com)(HN/January 30, 2012) - A high level Global Sustainability panel organized by the UN released its report on resilient sustainability for both people and the planet today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The report release by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon comes on the sidelines of the 18^th ordinary African Union Summit which opened here this weekend.

The report says a “Future Worth Choosing” must be based on true costs to people and the environment and that the world is running out of time to create real solutions to ensure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population expected to reach 9 billion by 2040 from 7 billion now, and the number of middle-class consumers which will increase by 3 billion over the next 20 years.  As a result, demand for resources will rise exponentially.

Even by 2030, the world will need at least 50% more food, 45 % more energy and 30 % more water, according to U.N. estimates, at a time when a changing environment is creating new limits to supply. The report warns that if the world fails to tackle these problems, it risks sending up to 3 billion people into poverty.

"The current global development model is unsustainable. To achieve sustainability, a transformation of the global economy is required," the report said.

There are 20 million more undernourished people now than in 2000; 5.2 million hectares of forest are lost per year - an area the size of Costa Rica; 85 percent of all fish stocks are over-exploited or depleted; and carbon dioxide emissions have risen 38 percent between 1990 and 2009, which heightens the risk of sea level rise and more extreme weather.

Among the panel's goals for governments is to agree on a set of sustainable development goals which would complement the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) by 2015 and create a framework for action.

(PHOTO: File) The 22 member panel, established by the Secretary-General in August 2010 to formulate a new blueprint for sustainable development and low-carbon prosperity, was co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma.  The final report contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible.  “Resilient People, Resilient Planet” calls for the integration of social and environmental costs in how the world prices and measures economic activities. It also calls for a set of sustainable development indicators that go beyond the traditional approach of Gross Domestic Product and recommends that Governments develop and apply a set of Sustainable Development Goals that can mobilize global action and help monitor progress.

The Secretary-General, in receiving the Panel’s report, stated that sustainable development is a top priority for his second term of office. “We need to chart a new, more sustainable course for the future, one that strengthens equality and economic growth while protecting our planet,” said the Secretary-General.  The report of provides a timely contribution to preparations for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil in June 2012.

Addressing the Secretary-General via video, co-chair President Halonen stressed the importance of placing people at the center of achieving sustainable development. “Eradication of poverty and improving equity must remain priorities for the world community,” noted President Halonen. “The Panel has concluded that empowering women and ensuring a greater role for them in the economy is critical for sustainable development.”

(GRAPH: EOLSS.COM)Among the panel’s other recommendations they said that governments should work with partners to create an "evergreen revolution," which would at least double productivity while reducing resource use and avoiding further biodiversity losses, the report said.  Water and marine ecosystems should be managed more efficiently and there should be universal access to affordable sustainable energy by 2030.  Carbon and natural resource pricing should be established through taxation, regulation or emissions trading schemes by 2020 and fossil fuel subsidies should also be phased out by that time. National fiscal and credit systems should be reformed to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices as well as disincentives for unsustainable ones. Sovereign wealth and public pension funds, as well as development banks and export credit agencies should apply sustainable development criteria to their investment decisions, and governments or stock market watchdogs should revise regulations to encourage their use.  Science should be behind environmental progress and the UN should consider naming a chief scientific adviser or board to advise the organization, and calls on the Secretary-General to lead efforts to produce a regular Global Sustainable Development Outlook report that integrates knowledge across sectors and institutions

The 22 members of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability included current and former heads of states, ministers, and representatives of the private sector and civil society.  In addition to the Co-chairs, the Panel included Sheikh Abdallah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates; Hajiya Amina Az-Zubai, Former Senior Special Assistant and Adviser to the President of Nigeria on the Millennium Development Goals; Ali Babacan, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey; James Laurence Balsillie, former Co-Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion; Alexander Bedritsky, Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, Special Envoy for Climate; Gro Harlem Brundtland, Former Prime Minister of Norway; Micheline Calmy-Rey, Former President and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland; Julia Carabias Lillo, Former Secretary of the Environment of Mexico; Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation of Sweden; Luisa Dias Diogo, Member of Parliament and former Prime Minister of Mozambique; Han Seung-soo, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Green Growth Institute and former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea; Yukio Hatoyama, former Prime Minister of Japan; Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action; Cristina Narbona Ruiz, former Minister of the Environment of Spain, Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Rural Development of India, Susan E. Rice, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Kevin Rudd, Minister for Foreign Affairs and former Prime Minister of Australia; Freundel Stuart, Prime Minister of Barbados; Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, Minister of the Environment of Brazil, and Zheng Guoguang; Administrator of the China Meteorological Administration. Mr. Janos Pasztor was an ex-officio member as Executive Secretary of the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.

The full report is available at www.un.org/gsp.

---HUMNEWS

A Look Back at Last Year's Uprising and the Latest Headlines from Egypt

One year ago: Photos from the uprising in Egypt

Egypt govt terminates contract with Washington lobbyists‎ 

As Egyptian election’s second phase begins, voter turnout falls dramatically

A Year After Egypt's Uprising: One Revolution, Two Perspectives‎

Egypt's Moussa Can't Object to Success of Islamists‎ 

Egyptian Stocks: Maridives & Oil Services, Orascom Telecom 

Egyptian blogger holds presser following release

‎Solidarity marches join Maspero sit-in following clashes

Israel plans Red-Med rail link to take Suez overflow 

Egypt's military council mulls over early handover of power

Syria: A Call to Arms

By Zeina Khodr in the Middle East 

Their calls were not heard - or more accurately a divided international community could not agree on a tough UN resolution that would lead to such action.

This Friday the slogan was: "We have the right to defend ourselves". It was a clear message to the world that they are ready to fight this battle, "with or without your help",  activists told me. 

Omar, who is originally from Homs but who is living in exile in Istanbul told me: "This is our right ... It is our right to take up arms and we are not going to shy away from this any longer. We are being killed. We waited for any action from the Arab League and the United Nations and none was forthcoming. All they have been doing is stalling and that has given the regime time to crush the revolution." 

Omar explained that military councils are now being set up in governorates across Syria. It is part of efforts to organise a command structure. Councils that will be made up of civilians as well as army defectors. "Yes, civilians who want to hold weapons are joining our struggle," he said.

And, it seems they now have the full backing of the main political opposition, the Syrian National Council. "The SNC is now mapping who the groups are on the ground in Syria and Turkey," council spokeswoman Bassma Kodmani said, adding that the SNC is ready to give money and equipment to the fighters in Syria

It is a change in policy especially since it was only this month when the SNC decided to cooperate more closely with the Free Syrian Army command to reorganise loosely-structured units fighting under its umbrella.

I asked Omar how they intend to wage war against a stronger and more sophisticated army. His answer was blunt: "Even if it requires us to smuggle weapons into the country we will do this. We are being killed. Whatever action we take to defend ourselves is justifiable."

As a divided world debates on what to do next in Syria, many in the opposition seem to have already made their decision - a decision not supported by all groups who fear that taking up arms would only give the state an excuse to hit harder.

Haytham Manna, a leading opposition figure, is wary of militarising the conflict. He advised the Arab League to hold talks with Russia before turning to the United Nations for intervention. "Russia would stand by Assad even more staunchly if it feels sidelined," he said.

There are fears miltiarising the conflict would lead to Syria sliding towards civil war. 

"The threshold has not yet been passed to speak of an armed conflict," Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) operations for the Near and Middle East, said. 

The ICRC's legal criteria for civil war include an opposition that clearly controls territory and has a military structure with a clear chain of command. 

There may be many definitions for "civil war". But the actions on the ground show Syria is close to all-out war.

Originally published by AlJazeera under Creative Commons License  

Nigeria's Boko Haram vows to fight until country establishes sharia law

A spokesman for Boko Haram tells the Guardian exclusively that the Islamist group says it will not stop deadly attacks until country is ruled according to dictates of Allah.

The Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed almost 1,000 people in Nigeria, will continue its campaign of violence until the country is ruled by sharia law, a senior member has told the Guardian.

"We will consider negotiation only when we have brought the government to their knees," the spokesman, Abu Qaqa, said in the group's first major interview with a western newspaper. "Once we see that things are being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are released [from prison], we will only put aside our arms – but we will not lay them down. You don't put down your arms in Islam, you only put them aside."

Qaqa, whose name is a pseudonym, said the group's members were spiritual followers of al-Qaida, and claimed they had met senior figures in the network founded by Osama bin Laden during visits to Saudi Arabia.

The interview comes a week after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for Nigeria's single deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 186 people in the northern city of Kano.

In an audio message posted on YouTube on Friday, the group's current leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to bomb schools and kidnap family members of government officials.

"If [security forces] are going to places of worship and destroying them, like mosques and Quranic schools, you have primary schools as well, you have secondary schools and universities, and we will start bombing them."

Shekau rejected calls for a negotiated peace from President Goodluck Jonathan, who on Thursday called for the shadowy sect to step out of the shadows and engage in dialogue.

Nigerian officials have voiced hopes for a negotiated settlement with "moderate elements" of the group. "Under the circumstances, if you look hard enough, you can find moderate elements you can communicate with," General Andrew Azazi, the national security adviser to the president, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Western diplomats say Boko Haram has splintered and the hardliners leading the factions responsible for the wave of violence that has killed some 250 people this year appear to have rejected any suggestion of dialogue.

The Guardian was able to contact Abu Qaqa through an intermediary from the group's home state. The go-between has been in contact with the group since its inception, and met with its founder, Mohammed Yusuf, several times before he was killed in 2009. For most of the interview he used a voice modulator, but local journalists confirmed that his undisguised voice matched recordings of previous interviews.

Qaqa said Shekau and others had travelled to Saudi Arabia for training and funding. "Al-Qaida are our elder brothers. During the lesser Hajj [last August], our leader travelled to Saudi Arabia and met al-Qaida there. We enjoy financial and technical support from them. Anything we want from them we ask them."

He said recruits from neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger had joined the group. A recent UN report said weapons from Libya may have been smuggled to Boko Haram and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghre via Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Security officials and diplomats in Abuja said they had no evidence of a link with al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, but an official confirmed that "elements of Boko Haram have made contact with external groups". The extent and frequency of that contact was unknown, the official said.

In the decade since it first appeared, Boko Haram has graduated from crude driveby attacks on beer parlours to bombing security buildings in the northern Muslim heartland. Its most audacious attack targeted the United Nations building in the capital, Abuja, killing 25 in August. In recent weeks, Christians institutions have increasingly come under fire. A Christmas Day bomb attack on a packed church just outside the capital claimed almost 40 lives.

But Qaqa said the rights of the country's 70 million Christians, who represent half of Nigeria's population, "would be protected" under the group's envisioned Islamic state. "Even the prophet Mohammed lived with non-Muslims and he gave them their dues." But he said everyone must abide by sharia law: "There are no exceptions. Even if you are a Muslim and you don't abide by sharia, we will kill you. Even if you are my own father, we will kill you."

Speaking fluent but non-native Hausa, the lingua franca across the Sahelian belt on the cusp of the Sahara desert, he said: "It's the secular state that is responsible for the woes we are seeing today. People should understand that we are not saying we have to rule Nigeria, but we have been motivated by the stark injustice in the land. People underrate us but we have our sights set on [bringing sharia to] the whole world, not just Nigeria."

Sharia law is already in place across 12 states in the Muslim-majority north. Few believe the group's radical ideology has traction in Nigeria's mainly Christian south, which is also home to millions of Muslims and has so far been out of the group's reach.

Raising his voice for the only time during the interview, Qaqa denied reports that some governors in northern Nigeria paid the group monthly allowances in exchange for immunity from attacks. "May God punish anyone that said so," he said, before adding that the group has popular support in the north.

"Poor people are tired of the injustice, people are crying for saviours and they know the messiahs are Boko Haram.   "People were singing songs in [northern cities] Kano and Kaduna saying: 'We want Boko Haram'," Qaqa said, describing how the group can blend into the communities in which it operates. "If the masses don't like us they would have exposed us by now. When Islam comes everyone would be happy," he said.

Diplomats say Nigeria's security services are belatedly attempting to gain control of the situation, which was previously dismissed as an internal, northern squabble often fuelled by politicians with personal grievances.

"There is an ongoing review of all security agencies," the presidential aide Ken Wiwa said. "This is a relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria and the administration is working hard to improve its capacity to respond. There are various other initiatives which will be implemented but this is as much a political as a security issue."

An official said Nigeria's central bank was involved in measures aimed at strangling the group's external funding sources, including speeding up a cashless economy.

(By the Guardian’s Monica Mark in Abuja, Nigeria.  READ MORE HERE)

Somalia: Returning to my Homeland (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

Michael Bociurkiw interviews UK-based Somali, Samira Hashi upon her return from her homeland and talks to her about leaving, why she went back, the dire situation in refugee camps and bringing about change.

Michael Bociurkiw: You fled Somalia as an baby at the beginning of the civil war, where did you and your family go? - how did you end up in the UK? 

Samira Hashi: I was born in 1990 in the city of Mogadishu, once known as the 'Jewel of Africa'. Ten days into my livelihood the civil war broke out in Somalia. 

My mother had two choices, to hang about and wait till things got worse of flee for a better life and future for herself and her children. My mother, one of the many educated people in Somalia, fled as early as possible. 

The nearest location for safety, at the time was Kenya, which hadn't even opened a refugee camp yet. Whilst they (refugee camps) were being established my family and I stayed in camps in Mombassa, later moving to another similar refugee camp in Otanga. For two years my family struggled to survive, barely being able to feed ourselves let alone put a roof over our heads. Luckily organizations such as the Red Cross were there to offer support and aid as well as relief from the trauma of the on-going war. 

I come from a very large family that are all spread around the world, they couldn't bare to see me and my family suffer and they did all they could to support us in such a difficult time as well as getting us out of that grueling situation. I moved to the UK at a very young age, we settled quickly and began out new lives here. I would say that was one of the best and most admirable decisions my mother made and I give her my greatest gratitude towards her. 

MB: What has life been like for you growing up in the UK? 

SH: Coming from a country with little solidarity, security and governing system, that is now recognized as a 'failed state', my mother put great pressure in teaching us the value of liberty and independence. 

Education was always her priority and she ensured me and my sisters obtained qualifications that would one day help us stand on our own two feet. As soon as we came into the UK me and my sisters began nursery and have been working consistently up the academic ladder. As a result of a strong, persistent mother all of my 4 older sisters have successfully passed higher education and have achieved a university degree, some now on advance levels working towards procuring their masters.

Currently I am studying International Business and Law at Kingston University, not only to demonstrate my intellectual ability but also to achieve my goal in establishing my own business. Education is an essential part of my life as one day I wish to enlighten and empower girls and young women all over the world using my knowledge and skills in life. 

MB: You are model and have grown in that field, how did you start and what are you looking to do now? 

SH: At a very young age I was aware that I was different from all of my other sisters. They are very reserved and shy and found that they sat well with the education system. I have always had this suspicion that although knowledge is power theirs more to life than just an exam paper and textbooks. I was desperate to explore the world, learn and experience things that a printed document written by a man twenty years ago couldn't teach me. My mother wasn't always fond of my new aspirations, she always believed I would get lost in this cruel, harsh, beautiful world. Despite all her pleading and appeal for me to stick with my sisters, I became to anxious and set out on a journey in finding myself and my purpose of living. 

Throughout my journey I came across a modelling agency at the age of 17 who seemed very intrigued in working with me. I signed the contract and later realised that this is something I entirely enjoy. It was more than taking a photo with a camera man that captured me, its the warmth feeling I felt when connecting with people I was working with. The ability to portray a strong emotion or expression without speaking, the idea of manipulating an image to create something that could be compared with art, it excited me. I grew a passion for modelling, I was determined to succeed and knew nothing could stop me other than myself. I learnt the ropes of the industry and gained further confidence.

Soon I felt restricted and believed I could achieve great things from my modelling career but felt I wasn't given the opportunities to deliver. This lead me to leaving my old agency and advertising and promoting myself to gain recognition from modelling agencies that were on a higher level. For one year I crafted and worked extremely hard, I was dismissed and rejected by a number of agencies still I refused to loose hope and give up on my dreams and ambitions. I learnt to brand myself, believe that I had the ability to be the best and make use of any opportunity that passed my way. I discovered my purpose in modelling when I got signed to one the biggest modelling agencies in the world 'Elite London'. It verified the belief I had in myself now knowing that individuals that have the ability to transform my modelling career are convinced that I can achieve great things.

Through my modelling career I understand that I could put myself in a position where I am recognised for the work that I do. I have never wanted to make a fortune or become famous. My aim in modelling is to become a role model, to get to a point in my career where I can bring about change and make a difference to the world. Where I have the ability and power to educate and inspire girls and young women and give a voice to those that are not heard.

I wish to motivate young people to take no notice of what their forced to believe and to create and carve their own pathways for themselves. Like myself to find their own destiny and work towards becoming a unique, successful, independent individual. 

MB: What motivated you to go back to Somalia now? 

SH: Somalia has always played a huge role in my life. My mother enlightened me and my sisters with the Somali culture from the clothes she wore, to the food we ate, the weddings we went to, the music she would sometimes blast from the stereo or laptop. My mother refused to let go of her culture and everything she knew just because she came into the UK. She wanted to teach us about our heritage and roots.

Other than the war my mother always embraced the good memories she held of our country and never failed to stop telling us stories. Somalia was always in my heart but I never felt any connection as I was to young to remember. The only recollection I had was what I saw on the news and many times that wasn't something positive.

I always knew I had some responsibilities towards my country as a young Somali growing up in London but I never thought of the extent or necessity that our help was needed. What motivated me to return was the desire to gain a deeper understanding of my country, to feel assured and content with my roots and myself, and to see what aid I can offer or facilitate in helping a country that most desperately needs it.  

As Somalia is my country of birth and previous home to my large family I felt obliged to return and participate in the process of development. At many of times prior to going back home and even when I was actually in Somalia I was scared for my safety and constantly prayed that God would protect me. Despite that, I defeated that anxiety for the purpose of a better future not only for myself and my family but for the whole of my country and its people. 

MB: Tell us about the documentary you worked on... 

SH: I recently contributed on a 60 minute documentary for BBC 3 which enabled me to return to Somalia and highlight issues such as; the war, famine and drought and bring them into the surface of the media.

As a young Somali who fled in 1990 my age and the war in Somalia are in correlation; we both turned 21 last year. The idea of the documentary was to reach out to a young audience that may not have any concept of current affairs and issues occurring on the other side of the world. The documentary was mind-blowing as it fulfilled all my desires in gaining a connection with Somalia and grasping a broader concept of its current state.

Working on this documentary not only altered my views on my country, it also changed me as a person. My experiences in Somalia has made me more humble than I ever thought by appreciating the simplest things that we take for granted, such as clean water that runs continuously from our taps. The programme that was once only supposed to be a personal journey, I am now seeing as a platform to bring about change.

MB: What are the conditions like for the people you met .... is there one particular person or memory that touched you? 

SH: The conditions in Somalia were not as vibrant and radiant as the stories my mother used to always share with us. The powerless state has little effect in protecting and preventing the on-going war that's now long over due.

Somali's have been fleeing since 1990 and continue to still leave hastily in their thousands. Current invasion of Al'Shabaab militants have left the country in turmoil and people in fear, restrictions on aid and external intervention has left the Somali people to perish due to the famine and drought. Hope for a better further and better lives melt away day by day. Even when they think the suffering is all over, Somali's overcome many more barriers and hurdles.

The refugee camp at times cannot accommodate the thousands of displaced people so they have to sit and wait for days sometimes months for just a piece of sheet of plastic to shelter themselves and their families. Food is always scarce and with such harsh conditions of heat and lack of water, Somali's are bound to deteriorate.

A special memory that I refuse to neglect is the protection and safety of Somali refugees in one of the camps in particular area situated in Ethiopia called 'Halloweyn'. The security and preservation in some these refugee camps is extremely poor. One of the issues raised and covered in the documentary is the number of rape victims that actually occur so often in the camps and the diminutive action taken to prevent this as well the level of awareness which is more less being concealed.

I interviewed two young women who had been subjected to rape by the locals due to travelling far into the woods to collect wood fire to cook and feed their families. I then discovered that this happens so often that the Somali refugee's had protested outside the UNHCR compound in Dollo Ado, for their voices to be heard and someone to do something about it.

It is embarrassing to say that this issue has not once been raised in the UK media or in fact anywhere else. I am currently in the process of establishing my own charity that helps protect vulnerable women all over the world and I feel compelled to begin with Somali women. I am going to develop this charity by initially gaining support from the large Somali Diaspora located all over the world. I want to raise a petition that helps support my concerns and votes against the defective security and protection system that is currently in place in this particular refugee camp. I plan to transmit these problems to my local MP who I hope could then highlight them within the House of Parliament.  My objective this year is to help establish a beneficial system where Somali women within the 'Halloweyn' refugee camp our guarded from rape and gender based violence.

Simple almost effortless arrangements could be put in place for example; a security guard that safeguards the women and observes whilst they collect the wood fire, women proceeding into the outskirts only in large numbers, only men collecting the wood fire or even a half way meeting point. This will ensure and shield the well-fare of not only the mental mind state of Somali women but also their health and future refuge. 

MB: What more can the rest of the world do... what is your message? 

SH: The outside world can:

• Raise more awareness about Somalia
• Deal with issues that are could easily be dealt with but are overlooked by the war and famine such as; the number of rapes that occur within the refugee camps
• Urge the Somali Diaspora (especially the young) to do more for their country as hope lies within them. We are the future of Somalia
• Highlight areas such as; Somali-land that has maintained a safe and working system for the Somali people - Showing that not everything within the Somali community is negative.
• Please get involved and sign up for my petition and help protect our girls, young and old women  

My message: This is not the end for Somalia, we have a very bright future and only us the people of the country can bring about those changes. Don't give up on such a beautiful place and don't loose hope. Believe and we will all achieve a better and safer environment for ourselves and our children. 

You can contact me if you wish to help or discuss any of the issues that I have raised further

 samirahashi5@hotmail.co.uk 

Collectively Failing Syrian Society (PERSPECTIVE)

By Peter Harling

Protesters in Syria - Poster reads:“My brother and I stand against my cousin, my cousin and I stand against the stranger, the stranger and I stand against the House of Assad.” Photo taken by an activist in Syria from AlJazeera.com/liveblog/syriaFor months, neither the Syrian regime, the international community, nor the opposition in exile have offered much hope in a dangerously deteriorating crisis. Increasingly, they seem to be unintentionally conniving in bringing about a civil war although it will serve no one's interests, destabilize Syria for years, and suck in the rest of the region.

Their enduring pursuit of maximalist demands may sabotage what chance still exists for a negotiated transition.

The regime's vision consists in cracking down decisively against residual pockets of foreign-backed trouble-makers, then opening up politically within sensible boundaries -- similar to Jordan's or Bahrain's promise of limited reforms.

Outside players currently bent on its demise, it wagers, ultimately will realize it cannot be destroyed; already hesitant for lack of good options and fear of ensuing chaos, they will grudgingly move to softer forms of pressure and, in time, even resume engagement.

The regime's sympathizers and allies are all too keen to believe that it is strong, that the reach of the protest movement is wildly exaggerated by hostile media, that the foreign conspiracy is both all-encompassing and impotent, and that Syrian society is so disease-ridden -- a hodgepodge of fundamentalists, thugs, and third party proxies -- that it cannot but deserve the security services' tough medicine.

This narrative is flawed in more ways than one. For ten months, the regime has been collapsing in slow-motion, and it is showing. Its political structures, weak at the outset, have eroded beyond repair; the executive has lost any ability it once had to implement policy and the ruling party is an empty shell. The security services remain largely cohesive and ready to fight, but in many places they increasingly resemble at best an occupying force cut off from society, at worst a collection of sectarian militias on a rampage.The military is fragmenting, slowly but surely. The regime's territorial control depended on the protest movement remaining largely peaceful.Now that an insurgency is spreading, it is losing its grip.

Arguably, the regime has refrained from using much of the firepower at its disposal, for fear of tilting the balance decisively against it within the international community.

It could easily muster enough troops to put down resistance in any specific area, but at the expense of letting things slip elsewhere in a losing game of whack-a-mole; other rebellious areas would go for broke, knowing their turn would soon come if the regime was allowed to deal with them sequentially. Meanwhile, the economy's collapse is accelerating.

Because none of this is lost on a majority of Syrians, once spectacular demonstrations of loyalists have narrowed to the point where official footage prefers close-ups to aerial photography. The "silent majority" the regime claimed to have on its side is now angry and scared: it both blames the country's leadership for spelling disaster and distrusts the protest movement, exiled opposition, and outside world for offering no clear prospect for the future other than growing chaos. 

On a popular level, the picture also differs from what the regime, its sympathizers, and allies would like to believe.

The protest movement, which to this day remains conspicuously absent from the official narrative, is remarkably broad-based, intuitively cohesive, and in many ways sophisticated.

Until now, it has effectively contained the more thuggish, criminal, sectarian, and fundamentalist strands that clearly exist within society. In fact, the protest movement's better sides are the only bulwark against such demons, at a time when the regime's course of action -- exacerbating communal tensions as a divide-and-rule tactic, targeting non-violent activists, and compartmentalizing its territory while losing control within screened-off areas -- is making things worse by the day.

Unlike the case of Libya, it took months of bullying, disruption, and despair for Syrians to call for international intervention (which they ordinarily would loath), to pick up arms on a large scale (an option the vast majority agreed should be kept as the last resort), and to allow a political struggle to give way insidiously to civil strife (as is occurring in some parts of central Syria).

If chaos deepens further, criminals, foreign volunteers, and home-grown fundamentalists are bound to become more striking features of this crisis -- a self-fulfilling prophecy come true.

The conspiracy theory also has its limits. True, the protest movement may not have survived, let alone thrived, without a sympathetic -- and in some cases deeply biased and unprofessional -- international media, as well as considerable logistical support from abroad, notably from within an expansive and mobilized diaspora. But even taking such factors into account, realities on the ground don't come anywhere close to the regime's narrative.

Bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists sponsored from abroad are hard to find in a sea of angry ordinary citizens motivated by local grievances, and above all the brutal, unaccountable behavior of the security services (which by now is all that a large proportion of Syrian society sees of the regime). Emerging armed groups complain bitterly about inadequate weapons and shortage of ammunition, suggesting for the time being a dearth of strategic depth. 

The international community, powerless and deeply divided, has so far not been acting decisively. The West, which initially hoped the regime would do a better job at managing the crisis -- and thus spare it from a risky adventure in a sensitive part of the world -- has come full circle: although the practicalities remain unclear, the consensus now favors regime-change, with dreams of regional change lurking in the background giving a hoped-for domino effect on Hezbollah in Lebanon and a besieged leadership in Iran.

Russia appears concerned about heightened instability in the area at large, the prospect of further empowering Islamists, and the West's typically cavalier attempts to push its agenda under the guise of noble moral values.

The Arab League has been engaged constructively, sending observers that may have failed to solve the crisis but which have staved off the escalation in violence on all sides one could have expected in their absence.

Unfortunately, its more assertive members are those with the least credibility to take the lead -- Gulf monarchies that united to put down popular protests in Bahrain tend to adopt a sectarian perspective on regional events, and have paid only lip service to reforms at home.

Other Arab countries are essentially in disarray, bogged down by domestic tensions, fearful of more regional instability, and distrustful of the West, given its track record of making things worse, not better, in this part of the world.

The result has been a slow-moving but determined effort to lock the regime into a set of constraints that could force it to recognize the reality of its domestic crisis and negotiate an exit, while fending off any risk of hands-on Western involvement.

Thus the transition plan announced this week, involving a caretaker role for the Syrian vice-president, the establishment of a national unity government, the election of a constitutional committee, and reforming the security apparatus, offers a mechanism that can be built upon and consolidated. If support for a negotiated transition comes from all quarters, critical pressure will be brought to bear on a regime whose primary asset now consists in playing Russian support and Western brinkmanship off each other. 

Part of the problem has been the dismal performance of the opposition in exile. Its members, even as they repeatedly talk on satellite channels about the sufferings of their kin back home, have in fact spent the better part of their energy squabbling over personal rivalries, lobbying for international recognition, and debating a foreign intervention that -- whether it is desirable or not -- simply will not happen in the foreseeable future.

Focused on following the mood on the Syrian street rather than leading the way forward, they have shut the door on any negotiated transition, decried the Arab League's initiative instead of suggesting ways to optimize it, and failed to articulate a credible, workable strategy.

Even the more obvious political imperatives, such as offering the prospect of a reconciliation process with those who, although carrying out the repression have not ordered it, have run up against the opposition's preference for echoing the frustration felt by ordinary citizens after months of escalating regime violence. However, key to any resolution of the deep social divide that has emerged within Syria will be a firm but smooth process to overhaul the existing security apparatus, as the lessons of the Iraqi disaster make clear.

All sides have been incapable of agreeing on what would be a reasonable U.N. Security Council resolution: making clear it does not endorse foreign military intervention, both to reassure Russia and because within the current parameters of the conflict it is not in the cards anyway; calling all parties to cease fire; blaming the regime for bringing the country to the brink; holding it fully accountable for seeking a solution; demanding it implements the Arab League's transition plan; and insisting it respects peaceful protests under a reinforced observers mission, with the additional deployment of Arab monitors embedded within the security apparatus where required in the face of armed groups.

The regime may choose to ignore what some would describe as a toothless resolution. In fact, what has enabled it to shun international pressure until now is the sense that key players like Russia and others condoned its approach, a decisive factor of self-confidence within its own ranks.

A Security Council resolution is the one available lever that could be brought to bear on a Syrian leadership that feels sheltered by the prevailing divisions on the international scene, and would rather take the country down the road to civil war than negotiate in order to obtain what still can be achieved (not least guarantees for the Alawite community, a phased hand-over of power, and the assurance of institutional continuity) at the cost of giving up on the hope that hunkering down and making reforms that only satisfy its supporters somehow will enable it to stay in power.

It should come as no surprise that in the absence of any glimmer of hope, despair has been taking hold of Syrian society.

It is already expressed in multiple forms, all of them disturbing, but things are poised to get worse. As more Syrians come to believe that their collective efforts are in vain, that the world has forsaken them, and that the regime can only be fought with its own methods, the nature of the struggle could be transformed into something more fragmented, narrow-minded, and brutal.

Those who have given up on everything but God will be easy recruits for the Islamists. The logistical needs of armed groups will offer opportunities for whoever is willing to sustain them. Communal rifts may further deepen. Violence predictably will serve as a vehicle for the advancement of the more thuggish components within each community.

The creative, responsible, and forward-looking activists within the protest movement could soon feel overpowered -- many already do. That feeling, combined with unrelenting pressure from the security services, is gradually pushing some to give up or even flee abroad.

Until now, the regime and a majority of its supporters, allies, critics, and foes appear to have been operating under the same assumption: that the deadly stalemate the crisis is locked in will endure a while longer, until the other side gives way. This could still be true, but within the current parameters, it is becoming increasingly improbable that the power structure will suddenly unravel, that it will succeed in regaining lost ground, or that its opponents will accommodate it in any way.

If this impasse endures any longer, the struggle could quickly mutate into an open-ended civil war.

Although the regime bears most of the responsibility for bringing the situation up to this point, the international community and exiled opposition have no excuse for moving it further along this terrifying path.

Peter Harling is Project Director for Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon with the International Crisis Group

This article was orignally published in Foreign Policy magazine 

Chinese Lessons in Leadership (Part 2 SERIES/REPORT)

By Melissa Chan in Asia 

There is some remarkable schooling for the ruling within the Communist Party [Gallo]

I could see more ivy on the walls of the buildings than an Ivy League university and the rest of the grounds, with its mature trees and classical buildings, imparted a sense of Old World European scholarship.

It was a very different campus from other places we'd visited. China's top schools for example, have modern, uninspiring campuses.

The Communist Party, it seemed, had clearly saved the best for their own use.

Indeed, there was probably a sense of triumphalism to appropriate what had once been a Catholic seminary and re-establish it as their administrative training centre.

There are 80 million members of the Communist Party and more than half of them work in the government in some way - whether directly in a ministry or in a state-owned corporation. Training them in management and administration requires what is probably the biggest human resources department in the world: the Communist Party School system, with some 2,000 satellite campuses.

The mission of these schools is not only to teach cadres the tools of governance, but also to reinforce ideology and the party line. Our visit was at one of the most important campuses: the Beijing Party School where 300 faculty members teach courses in nine different departments, ferrying through thousands of officials a year - some who turn up for short week-long modules, and others who move into the dormitories for three-month terms.

The dean of what is officially known as the Beijing Administrative College, Zhou Chunming, tells us the school has formed exchanges with foreign equivalents, including Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

We were taken to a seminar on Marx's Das Kapital. I wondered how the professor would fit the current Chinese market economy with Chairman Mao's vision. The Party has changed from its 1949 revolutionary roots. Karl Marx would not have recognized modern China as any proletarian state.

Five minutes in, and Professor Liu Changlong was up there flatly dismissing the old textbooks and saying there was nothing wrong with capitalism to a room of middle-aged cadres.

Liu didn't exactly fawn over the new economic model, either. He went on to mull over private ownership and the unproductive way, as he saw it, wealthy people were getting wealthier, noting the growing income gap in the country.  He openly mused about the motivations of citizens willing to work as officials, and pointed out that one's ability to govern does not necessarily translate to any accompanying sense of ethics or morality.

It was a jab right at the officials sitting before him.  He moved on glibly to discuss corruption.  I was somewhat stunned.

"We have to talk about and analyze sensitive issues," Liu said. "The academic and teaching environment here is very relaxed.  There are no limitations to what can and cannot be discussed."

The Party School is an open forum, Liu went on to explain, because it has to be. Officials can't afford to avoid problems that could directly threaten their governance. The Propaganda Department may present news to the public, selecting facts and fabrication for inclusion. But on the closed campus of the Party School, officials must consider the real issues of income inequality, protests, and what direction the country should be headed, both politically and economically.

In a separate class, cadres separated into small groups for discussions, this time about Marx's Communist Manifesto. Their task was to discuss some of the challenges facing the party today through Marx's writings.

Questions assigned to the teams: 1) Marx was convinced capitalism was not sustainable. But 160 years later, it's still around. How do you explain that? 2) What do you think is the relationship between capitalism and socialism? 3) Based on Marx's Manifesto, what do you think of socialism with Chinese characteristics?Is this real Marxism? 4) How can the Manifesto help us build a harmonious society?

Participants in the classroom came from all walks of the party: a professor at a university, someone from the education bureau, a doctor at the medical college, a museum curator, a judge, and the chief engineer of a state-owned construction company.

Some of them were staying on campus. They had a schedule: from morning exercises in the courtyard to meals in the dining hall at night.

It is a great opportunity for cadres from different ministries and departments to network, and the development of friendships from time spent on campus probably equal the utility of studying Marx. For some party officials, attendance is a prelude to promotion, depending on the ministry or department.

As we left campus, we had a surprise: we passed by an old stone grave, gated off and surrounded by old trees.  It was the grave of Matteo Ricci, the 16th-century Jesuit missionary and one of the first Western scholars of Chinese language and customs. He would not have been surprised at the disciplined management style employed by China's Communist Party today.

For hundreds, if not thousands of years, China has always had the challenging business of governing a large population.

Orignally published by AlJazeera under Creative Commons License 

Challenges Ahead as China Marks a New Year (SERIES/REPORT)

By Melissa Chan in Asia 

It's the first day of the lunar new year in China. And what better way to celebrate than to kick off a four-part series on China's Communist Party?

This is the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is a great symbol of China, but its arrival actually portends bad luck and a challenging year ahead. 

That's something the political leadership of China is certainly not oblivious to. There is great worry in the months ahead as the Communist Party of China goes through its once-in-a-decade transition of power. Knowing what's happening at the top of the political leadership is almost impossible, but a narrative has developed about two factions with very different visions of how China ought to be run in the 21st century: a "liberal" camp that believes it is time for (very) modest political openness, and a "conservative" camp with populist and hard-line leanings.

This battle will take place behind the scenes. It will centre around the selection of the members of the Politburo Standing Committee - the most powerful positions at the very top, which include the president and premier of the country.

Here's what we know: President Hu Jintao will hand over control to Vice-President Xi Jinping. The important thing to keep in mind is that Hu Jintao's key role is not as a president. He is general secretary of the Communist Party - and that's where his power comes from. The year 2012 is significant because Xi Jinping will become general secretary of the party in October. He doesn't assume the title of president, meeting and greeting foreign dignitaries as head of state, until 2013.

This is remarkably telling, because what this means is that the political party is more powerful than the state in China. And of course, this is no ordinary political party. It boasts some 80 million members - that's about six per cent of the total population of the country. You don't just sign-up: there's a whole process you go through before you take the oath:

"It is my will to join the Communist Party of China, to uphold the party's programme, observe the provisions of the party constitution, fulfill a party member's duties, carry out the party's decisions, strictly observe party discipline, guard party secrets, be loyal to the party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people - and never betray the party." 

If you'd like to learn more about the structure of the party, you should check out Patrick Chovanec's blog post, "Primer on Chinese Leadership Transition".

What motivated me to pull together a four-part series was the feeling after reporting from China for five years and frequently talking on air about how "China says this" or "China thinks that" - that it was worth examining just what I meant every time I said "China". The word has often been shorthand for the Communist Party.

Additionally, China is a world power now. That was not the case when I first arrived in Beijing. Today it is the world's second-largest economy. Yet, we know very little about the political system that runs the government. We know so much comparatively, for example, about the US system.

There are limits to what a two-minute television report can possibly impart. But my goal was to provide viewers a brief and basic glimpse into some aspects of party life.

We thought it most appropriate to start by looking at who will be at the very top of the 80-million member political party: Xi Jinping. We visited Sha'anxi province, where he lived for seven years during the Cultural Revolution. I was personally impressed with his story from this part of his life: it is a compelling story of a city boy sent to the countryside. We know that he was an avid reader and would study at night long after he finished all his farm work. He was eventually selected as the village's leader - and left there having won the people over.

You may notice that we didn't manage to collect that much video material. Government officials often accuse foreign media groups of bias - that we paint China in a negative light. Here was what I considered a very positive story, but after an hour in the village, we were hounded out by officials. It seems that China can't help but suppress information, even at its own loss!

Finally, I would like to recommend to you one of my favourite books on China: Richard McGregor's book,"The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers". It's very different from what any of my reports this week examine. As I've said, I sought to take advantage of the television medium and provide visual glimpses of the Communist Party. McGregor's book, however, is the real deal. If you had to read one book on China, you need to read this one. It's about the Communist Party, through and through. It is compelling and fascinating, and has become a reference I've often turned to in my own reporting.

I hope you enjoy our series.

Orignally published by AlJazeera under Creative Commons License 

Non Natives Flee as Nigeria’s President Visits bombed City of Kano

(PHOTO: Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan meets the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero on Sunday/PM News) By Maduabuchi NMeribeh/ Kano

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan today visited the city of Kano, the scene of the most deadly offensive, so far, by the Islamic militant group, the Boko Haram.

As it is the practice, Jonathan vowed to identify and deal with sponsors and foot-soldiers of the sect and also announced on BBC later that some arrests have been made. He was in the state to assess the extent of havoc wrought by the Islamic fundamentalists in last Friday’s coordinated attacks on the ancient city.

The Nigerian President told the BBC that some arrests have been made over the attacks which according to some sources have so far claimed over 160 lives.

“Some arrests have been made. Some died in the process. Some were suicide bombers,” Jonathan said. It is not clear whether the President was talking of fresh arrests or a couple of Boko Boko Haram members Police claimed to have arrested during the attack.

“There must be people who are sponsoring them. Terrorists all over the world have their source of income. We are also looking into those areas to make sure that the so-called Boko Haram… those who are encouraging them, those who are sponsoring them, shall be brought to book,” said Jonathan who added that the perpetrators of the dastard act will be made to face the full wrath of the law added.

While commiserating with the Emir of Kano, President Jonathan again promised that his administration will ensure that terrorism becomes a thing of the past in the country.

“Our coming today is to express our condolence to the good people of Kano over the dastardly acts. Those causing havoc will never succeed … The federal government will not rest until the perpetrators are brought to book. We will not rest until these terrorists are wiped out,” said the President.

“A terrorist attack on one person is an attack on all of us,” Jonathan said as he inspected sites targeted in the violence, and met the city’s top Muslim traditional leader, Emir Ado Bayero, pledging to boost security”, he added.

The attacks have been described the biggest single attack so far since about five years of the sect’s insurgency.

Last Friday, Boko Haram held Kano hostage bombing and shooting in about 10 locations.  In the aftermath, about 200 people died, many were injured. Government and church properties were burnt.

Since the attack that sent fear and panic into the ancient city, security has been beefed up with soldiers taking over the streets.

Non-natives from the South were left with no choice than to embark on panic travelling.  Many Southerners today turned up at the New Road Park in Sabon Gari, to board luxury buses to the Eastern parts of Nigeria, as government eased the 24-hour curfew into a dusk to dawn curfew.

President Jonathan at Emir Ado Bayero’s palace, commiserated with the Emir and the people of Kano just as he regretted the multiple bomb attacks on security formations and Saint Louis Catholic Church at Bompai.

“The people doing this are not spirit. They are among us. I seek the cooperation of all towards getting those involved in the havoc arrested. I assure Nigerians that the government will intensify its security in Kano and all over the country to unravel the misery behind this act.

“What is good for us as a nation is to look at our neighbours, to know what they do to enable us fish out these miscreants because if we don’t, one day, it may be against us. We will not rest until these terrorists are wiped out,” the President stated.

He charged Nigerians to be watchful of bad elements in the society who continue to distract peace and stability, adding that, “Nigerians should do everything possible to make sure that miscreants in our midst are immediately reported to security agents. It is the responsibility of all Nigerians to fight militancy.”

The President also promised to order the deployment of more security agents in the state in addition to providing them with modern security equipment and logistics.

“Any dangerous attack on any community is an attack to Nigerians. In some years back, none of us will believe that Nigeria will be involved in suicide bombing mission,” he stated.

He therefore appealed to traditional rulers and patriotic Nigerians to educate their people on the inherent danger of terrorism.  While receiving the President in his palace, Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, in an emotional-laden tune condemned the perpetrators of the attack on Innocent citizens in the state, adding that Kano is now plunged into fears and apprehension which he urged the Federal Government to do everything to tackle the menace of insecurity in the country.

The Emir reiterated the fact that Kano being the most populous state in the country with a number of border communities should have adequate security personnel.

The President later visited the affected areas of the bomb blasts including the badly torched Zone 1 headquarters of the Police to access the damage. He promised that the Federal and state governments were ready to assist the injured and relatives of the dead during the attack.

--- Reporters Maduabuchi NMeribeh in Kano with Ayorinde Oluokun in Abuja contributed to this report which first ran in PM News Nigeria. 

Nigeria Under Attack (NEWS BRIEF)

(UPDATED JAN 21 1900GMT) - A series of coordinated bomb attacks on Friday aimed at key government installations in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has killed more than 150 people, with death tolls still rising.An eyewitness photo of one of the attacks in Kano. CREDIT: Vanguard Newspaper

Eyewitness reports said among the installations hit were the police headquarters for the north and the passport office.

Channels Television, an independent broadcaster based in Lagos, said in a Twitter message that its Kano correspondent, Enenche Akogwu, 31, was shot dead in the mayhem by suspected members of Boko Haram.

The apparently coordinated attacks represent one of the worst and most brazen assaults on the country, and follows a Christmas Day bomb attack on a Catholic church near Abuja and another on the UN headquarters in the capital in August, which killed more than 20 people.

"The nature of these attacks has sickened people around the world...There is no place in today's world for such barbaric acts," said UK Foreign Secretary William J. Hague.

A BBC correspondent in Kano said he would be surprised if the death toll was anything less than 100. A mortuary official quoted by the BBC said exact casualty figures were hard to come by as many people were likely still buried under rubble.

Al Arabiya, quoting a hospital source, said 162 bodies were brought to area morgues.

In the Kano attack, at least six explosions could be heard. Eyewitnesses writing on Twitter said security forces moved in as firefighters struggle to bring some blazes under control. An immediate 24-hour curfew has been imposed.

And, in an unprecedented move, Nigeria closed its borders Saturday with Cameroon and Niger, ostensibly because militants move freely from those countries into Nigeria.

With more than 9-million people, Kano is the most populated city in Nigeria after Lagos and is the capital of the predominantly Muslim north. The BBC, which has a correspondent in nearby Kaduna, said the radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram, has taken responsibility.

The attacks come on the tail end of labour disruptions that virtually paralyzed the nation for several days.

As news of the Kano attack spread, the exasperation of ordinary Nigerians came through on many tweets. Wrote a Twitter subscriber named Isha72 in Zaria, Nigeria: "Lord we may never have it as clueless as this again in Nigeria. How much can we take?"

Tweeted another user named Matt: "Where we are headed is not pretty."

One reader writing on the Vanguard Newspaper website said the violence shows it is time for the North and South - respectively predominantly Muslim and Christian - to go their own, separate ways: "When will the Southern leadership stand up and say: 'Enough with this marriage with the core North?'"

Several foreign governments, including Canada, have re-issued advisories against travel to Nigeria.

- HUMNEWS staff

Caribbean-Charisma: UK/CARICOM Forum Open's Today, Other Nations Pursue Regional Opportunities

St. George, Grenada - Photo courtesy of portang/via flickr(HN, January 20, 2012) -- The seventh biennial UK-Caribbean Forum begins today in St. George, Grenada under the theme of “Sustainable Growth Towards Prosperity”.

The forum is held for the purpose of what has been described as “establishing priority areas for cooperation, discussing key area of concern and proposing mechanisms to facilitate greater collaboration” between Britain and CARICOM nations, this year’s agenda has been organized around three main sub themes: Economic Resilience, Security and the Environment.  

Held at the level of Foreign Ministers, the Meeting is co-chaired by the UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague and the Chair of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, Foreign Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis.

British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has highlighted the major role of private sector investment in these difficult economic times saying, “the private sector is the engine of growth for our economies”

The UK is a major investor in the Caribbean – BG has recently made a large investment in Trinidad and Tabago, and Pinewood Studios are building a state of the art film studio in the Dominican Republic with local partners Grupo Vinci.

“There are however more business opportunities available, which is why I am being accompanied by Nick Baird, Chief Executive of UK Trade and Investment, and will lead a discussion with a rage of UK and Caribbean businesses at the Forum, “ said Hague.

The British foreign official hailed a ‘new era’ for UK-Caribbean relations, as for the first time in its seven iterations of the Forum, the Dominican Republic, one of the fastest-growing countries in the area, Haiti and Suriname will also take part, and observers will include British Caribbean Overseas Territories, including Bermuda, Canada, Australia and the USA.

He went on to say, “When I became Foreign Secretary I was determined to reinvigorate the UK’s relationships with its partners across the Caribbean. This year’s Forum has afforded me my first opportunity to demonstrate this commitment in concrete terms, by hearing firsthand the value of our relationships and how we can improve them.

Hague noted that around one and a half million British tourists visited the Caribbean in 2010, and tourism is a key plank of the economy, but, the Forum was set up in part to emphasise other vital links

CARICOM members, keen to discuss Hague’s expressed interest in forging a new relationship that reflects “changes in the global environment” of the 21^st century, are also looking to discuss some sensitive issues of concern in the Caribbean region - ranging from problems being encountered on the arrival in the UK by CARICOM nationals on legitimate businesses to:

- The recent threat by the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron to review allocation of aid to countries the he thinks “openly discriminate” against gays and lesbians; and

- The level of aid flows for depressed and vulnerable economies and the related prevailing dispute over British-imposed Air Passenger Duty (APD) levy on passengers traveling to the Caribbean from airports in the UK, that has pushed some stakeholders of the region’s vital tourism industry, to consider legal action unless there is a practical solution.

The forum, is also expected to find the CARICOM-member states in a more determined mood to collectively pursue a relevant “aid for trade” strategy with the UK which remains a major development donor in the region.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has been playing a key role in facilitating such a strategy which was the topic of a teleconference that was organized last October by the Trade Policy Unit of the Castries-based Secretariat of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

The new Secretary General of the CARICOM Secretariat, Irwin LaRocque, will most likely be in a better position to advance discussion on the need for timely delivery of "aid for trade" resources by the region's traditional external partners (including the UK), a matter that was addressed last July at the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade in Geneva.

Speaking then in his capacity as Assistant Secretary General for Trade and Economic Integration, LaRocque had emphasized the importance of this region's international development partners being sensitized to the imperatives of "timely delivery" of aid resources to comparatively small and vulnerable regional economies.

Hague has given assurance that he is not about to "throw away all of the strong bonds that tie the UK and the Caribbean region together…"

Such an assurance at this time, when the global economic crisis and more specifically the deepening "Eurozone financial woes" combine to further negatively impact on the economies of the Caribbean, the British Foreign Secretary is undoubtedly also conscious of the growing importance being attached by the two Asian economic giants: China and India, in doing business with the Caribbean region.

The Chinese spread of trade and economic relations from Jamaica in the northern sub-region to Guyana on the South American mainland would hardly have escaped the attention of either the UK or its closest ally, the USA, where successive administrations in Washington, so often still treat relations with the Caribbean as operating in a so-called "American lake".

While the vigorous initiatives by China to deepen trade and economic ties with the Caribbean on favorable terms, cannot be divorced from longer-term political objectives as an emerging world power under constant scrutiny by the USA, UK and their NATO allies; it is also becoming evident that India is likewise increasingly competing for business and friendship in the Caribbean-Latin American sphere.

- HUMNEWS Staff

From Davos to Dystopia (PERSPECTIVE)

By Ben Zala 

World Economic Forum in DavosNot long ago the World Economic Forum (WEF) found itself in the sights of the global economic justice movement. At the turn of the last century, before anyone was “occupying” public spaces in protest at the growing inequalities between the top strata of society and the rest, a broad global coalition of environment, development, and peace activists were targeting the public meetings of major institutions such as the WTO, the IMF, and the G8. In September 2000, activists shut down the opening of the WEF’s Asia-Pacific Summit in Melbourne, Australia in protest against an unrepresentative and unaccountable elite gathering to set the economic agenda for the year in a region marked by enormously uneven income distribution.

A mere 12 years later, in an intriguing reversal, the WEF has released a new report calling for a “shift in mentality” to address a looming crisis typified by rebellion, protest, and political violence sparked by inequality and marginalisation across the world. The seventh edition of the organization’s Global Risks report highlights the increasing importance of marginalization as a security issue over the coming decades. It describes the “seeds of dystopia” threatening both social and political stability across the world.

“As the world grows increasingly complex and interdependent, the capacity to manage the systems that underpin our prosperity and safety is diminishing,” the report declares. This conclusion presents perhaps the most radical call to arms from what would normally be considered a key player of the global political “establishment,”

After decades of entrenched poverty, massive debt and struggling against an unfair global trading system, those who languish on the margins of the global communityare in revolt. Yet our existing frameworks and reference points for building a response to this sort of global insecurity provide little assistance. To put it simply, Washington, Brussels, even Beijing and New Delhi have been caught off guard. The time for some radical thinking is upon us. That such calls are now coming from one of the engine rooms of neoliberal economics is a sign that we may be reaching a tipping point.

Revolt of the Masses

A number of actors in the defense and security realm have begun to explicitly make the connection between marginalization and insecurity. For example the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends: 2025 report predicts that in the years ahead “increasing interconnectedness will enable individuals to coalesce around common causes across national boundaries, creating new cohorts of the angry, downtrodden, and disenfranchised.” Similarly, the chief of the UK Defence Force, General Sir David Richards has discussed the Naxalite insurgency that has spread rapidly across India in recent years as a conflict with a “sense of hopelessness and economic envy at its core.” The effects are no longer merely local. Richards warns that “these are powerful instincts that today can be inflamed and communicated to other similarly dispossessed groups across the world at the touch of a button.”

Yet, thus far, the guardians of the global economic order have not begun to think through the long-term and serious consequences for peace and security of prolonged inaction on global inequality. This new analysis of the risks associated with the “seeds of dystopia” in the WEF report could be Davos finally catching up.  

The WEF describes dystopia as “a place where life is full of hardship and devoid of hope.” The reality is that after years of unequal growth and a growing divide between elites and non-elites both between and within countries, this description has become a reality for the majority of the world’s population. The neoliberal economic consensus which has dominated the WEF’s own discussions for so long has finally come up against the long-term consequences of a global free market unable to effectively price externalities (be they social, environmental or even now, strategic).

The report’s analysis of the interconnections between a number of risks reveals “a constellation of fiscal, demographic and societal risks signalling a dystopian future for much of humanity.” This echoes the work a number of more progressive and forward-looking think tanks such as the Oxford Research Group,Institute for Policy Studies, and the Center for American Progress over the last few years. These groups have focused not only on large-scale trends affecting global politics but also on the ways in which these trends interact and the implications for policymakers trying to make sense of a more complex world. For example, dealing with a growing division between elites and non-elites on a global scale is difficult enough without the effects of a warming global climate. As The Nation’s Christian Parenti puts it:

Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer lies what I call the Tropic of Chaos, a belt of economically and politically battered post-colonial states girding the planet’s mid-latitudes. In this band, around the tropics, climate change is beginning to hit hard…as a result, in this belt we find clustered most of the failed and semifailed states of the developing world.

Yet the risks are not just confined to the developing world. The WEF report warns that this dystopian future could extend to “developed economies where citizens lament the loss of social entitlements, emerging economies that fail to provide opportunities for their young population or to redress rising inequalities, or least-developed economies where wealth and social gains are declining.”

The report is part of a growing awareness of the linkages between events and flashpoints such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy movements worldwide, and civil unrest in countries from Thailand and Chile to Israel and India. The link, according to the report, is a common and “growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment, and the rapid public mobilization enabled by greater technological connectivity.” This frustration and resulting mobilization together create a much larger global trend. As such, ad-hoc national approaches are no longer sufficient for genuinely addressing the challenges of a marginalized majority world.

Beyond Davos

It is one thing to examine a number of interlinked global trends which add up to a dangerous – or dystopian – global picture. It is quite another to have the courage to genuinely rethink the foundations of the global order that has produced them. Unfortunately there are no easy answers to the question of how to reverse these trends, particularly at a time of truly global economic crisis when the temptations of short-term, voter-friendly fixes are sotempting.

This makes the potential role of organizations such as the WEF aimed at promoting dialogue and leadership even more important if used in the right way. A summit focused not on growth and competitiveness but on practical steps on issues such as debt reduction and institutional reform would be a good first start. Central to this must be real attempts to tackle the seeds of dystopia at their source – even if this means asking difficult questions and hearing uncomfortable answers in the major financial capitals of the world.  

If the dominant response to the risks outlined in the WEF report follows the formula of the last decade’s ‘war on terror’-- attempts to control insecurity through the use of high-tech military power -- then we best get used to living in a dystopian world. If however, global leaders and the citizens they represent can create responses that are aimed at addressing the underlying drivers of disenfranchisement and violence, then 2012 could be seen as the year that gives rise to a truly sustainable security. Then, when the powerful meet in Davos, they won’t simply be trying to save the old order but working cooperatively to create the new.

- Ben Zala manages the Sustainable Security Programme at the Oxford Research Group.

Originally published by Foreign Policy In Focus / Institute for Policy Studies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Bangladesh Army Says Forces Foiled an Attempt to Topple Government (NEWS BRIEF)

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed(HN, January 19, 2010) -- Military officials in Bangladesh say they have foiled an attempt by former and serving officers to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s government.

Brigadier General Muhammad Masud Razzaq told a news conference that “evidence has been unearthed that some officers in active military service have been involved in the conspiracy to topple the system of democratic governance through the army”. Razzaq said, current and former Bangladeshi military officers “with extreme religious views” were involved in the ‘heinous conspiracy”.

The plot was instigated by Bangladeshi conspirators living abroad, he added.

Two retired officers – Lt. Colonel Ehsan Yusuf and Major Zakir – have been arrested, Razzaq said, but did not say when. Authorities are also looking for another conspirator retired officer Major Ziaul Haq, he said.

Bangladesh, a parliamentary democracy since 1990, has witnessed two presidents killed in military coups and 19 other failed coup attempts, since its independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Running on a program of cutting food prices, raising living standards and fighting terrorism, the election of Hasina in 2008 ended of two years of military-backed emergency rule.

A border security force, the Bangladesh Rifles, mutinied in 2009 over guards’ pay and working conditions. (Newsxlive)

The rebels killed 63 army officers before the military suppressed the revolt and arrested hundreds of force members over subsequent months.

The government tried 666 members of the border guards in a single proceeding in June, convicting all but nine in a process that the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said failed to meet international standards for a fair trial.

About a third of Bangladesh, the world’s seventh most populous nation, floods during the annual monsoon, hampering development. According to the World Bank approximately 40 percent of the country’s 150 million people live on less than $1 a day. 

- HUMNEWS Staff, Agencies