UNHCR Concerned as Niger Forces Out Nigerians

YOLA, NIGERIA— The United Nations refugee agency expressed concern that Niger is forcing Nigerians away from Lake Chad and their livelihoods in the wake of a deadly battle with the Boko Haram extremist group.
Thousands of Nigerians who worked in the fishing industry are being forced away from Lake Chad by the government of Niger and back into Nigeria, according to authorities on both sides of the border.
The order comes in the wake of an attack, by the Boko Haram extremist group on the island of Karamga in Lake Chad last month, that killed at least 74 Niger soldiers and civilians.
Alhaji Muhammed Kanar, northeast coordinator for Nigeria’s emergency management agency, said, “From the first three days, we received nearly 4,000. And in fact, another batch of nearly 3,000 or above, we are now in the process of registration.”
Boko Haram’s six-year rampage across northeastern Nigeria has displaced more than a million Nigerians.
The attack in Niger came three months after Nigeria’s northern neighbor joined a multinational offensive aimed at ending the extremist group's quest to impose strict Sharia law on northeastern Nigeria.
Ordered to leave
Karl Steinacker, Niger's representative for UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said Niger's government last week ordered civilians living on islands in Lake Chad to leave.
Those islands are home to both Nigerians and Nigeriens working in the fishing industry. But, while citizens of Niger are moving into cities and towns, Nigerians have nowhere to go but back across the border, Steinacker said.
“People’s livelihoods have been destroyed because they have been told you can no longer live and work on the lake, and now they are told, OK, but in any event, we’ll take you back to your country. So they say yes… What other options do they have?" he said.
The migrant workers are being sent on trucks into Nigeria’s Yobe state, which has been ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency. Steinacker said the returning Nigerians are being put at risk.
“Even if they are migrants, the question is, is it appropriate to send them back, and is it the right way it’s being handled, and I guess in both cases it is no," he said.
After a meeting on Thursday, Steinacker says government officials agreed to a plan with aid agencies that will better allow them to assist the returning Nigerians.

Read More

LooK on Woonderful PHOTOS!!!!

1

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and ruler of Dubai (C) takes part in a ceremony to unveil UAE's Mars Mission in Dubai.

 

 

 

2

Boys sit in a tree under a partly cloudy sky in an open field in Karachi, Pakistan.

 

 

3

People walk through the garden of Changgyeonggung Palace in Seoul.

 

 

4

A boy jumps into the Ganges river to cool himself off on a hot summer day in Kolkata, India. Temperature in Kolkata is expected to reach 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

 

 

 

5

A couple uses a smartphone as they wait for the start of a shadow play performance at Changgyeonggung Palace in Seoul.

 

 

 

6

A man drives the "Iris viseo", an electric surveillance vehicle with a telescopic cockpit designed and manufactured in France at the car park of a shopping center in Noyelles-Godault.

 

 

 

7

A Buddhist monk catches an aerial view of Kathmandu from the damaged Swayambhunath Stupa premises in Kathmandu, Nepal.

 

 

 

8

A woman sits underneath a sculpture at a financial district in Beijing, China, May 5, 2015.

 

 

 

9

A view of the Great Falls of the Potomac River on the Virginia side of the river, about 25 km upstream from Washington, D.C. (photo by Diaa Bekheet)

 

 

 

10

The unmanned SpaceX Crew Dragon lifts off from launch pad 40 during a Pad Abort Test at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

 

 

 

11

Fabio Fognini from Italy serves during his Madrid Open tennis tournament match against Grigor Dimitrov from Bulgaria in Madrid, Spain.

 

 

 

12

Kaydann Marshall runs through a park fountain in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 5, 2015.Temperatures rose past 80 degrees Fahrenheit for the second consecutive day as warmer weather settled into the region.

 

 

 

13 View of the Villarrica volcano, one of Chile's most active, picture taken from Pucon, some 800 km south of Santiago

Read More

READ:....US Facing Dilemmas in Supporting Fragmented Syrian Opposition

 


From the outside, the Syrian opposition group Harakat Hazm seemed like the perfect candidate for the CIA’s covert program to train and arm moderate rebels.
The group, whose name means “Movement of Steadfastness” was secular, well-organized and dedicated to bringing down the government of Bashar al-Assad to “restore the freedom and dignity of the Syrian people.”
In the spring of 2014, Harakat Hazm was given 50 TOW anti-tank missiles.  In addition, the U.S. provided the rebels with salaries, medical supplies and ammunition, but never enough, rebels said. 
The episode is an example of the Obama administration’s apprehensions about supporting the fragmented rebel groups in Syria. 
The U.S. is concerned that arms could end up in the wrong hands - something that has already ocurred with some military aid.
And, if Assad were ever ousted, U.S. officials worry American involvement could inadvertently lead to radical Islamic groups gaining power – something the U.S. finds more intolerable than the Assad regime. 
“When we removed dictators in Iraq and Libya, we simply facilitated the rise of Al Qaida, and that’s why we have supported dictators throughout the Middle East for forty years — because we don’t want Islamists to take over,” Joshua M. Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma told VOA last year.
Robert S. Ford, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI) and former U.S. Ambassador to Syria, recalls the many dilemmas. He met with a Harakat Hazm representative who came to Washington that November, seeking greater White House support.
“He told us that the support the Americans gave was roughly 18,000 bullets a month,” Ford said. “Now, I’m not a military guy. I’m an economist. So I asked him, ‘That sounds like a lot.  How much is it?’ 
“He said, ‘Well, a normal fighter in the middle of combat might use up to a hundred rounds a day,’” Ford recalled.
Ford did the math. 
“At that rate, we would have been able to supply ten fighters for about 18 days,” he said.  “That’s not very serious support.”
Gains by Nusra
In the fall of 2014,  Harakat Hazm suffered a series of defeats by the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front in Idlib, seizing some U.S.-supplied weapons.  Washington’s worst fears realized, it stopped delivering arms to the group.
It is a move that Ford views as regrettable, as it left the rebels little alternative but to seek support elsewhere.
He said it came as no surprise to him when in March Harakat Hazm announced it was disbanding to join a larger rebel alliance, Jabhat al-Shamiyah, “Shamiyah Front,” which includes Islamists among its ranks.
Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, says this is only one example of a growing trend in Syria.
“What we have witnessed is that as the opposition has fragmented in the aftermath primarily of the Syrian gas-chemical weapons attack on Damascus by the Assad regime in August 2013,” she said. 
In the wake of that attack, moderate rebel forces did not receive the international assistance they had hoped for.
That only empowered Islamist groups and encouraged them to cooperate with al-Qaida’s Nusra Front, the only party they deemed strong enough to help take down the Assad regime. 
This in turn emboldened the Nusra Front to directly target moderate rebels who might side with the West to defeat the Islamist group.  
“So the decision by the Hazm movement to absorb into an Islamist group was the result of Nusra deliberately targeting that group in an attempt to force it to disband,” Cafarella said. “And those moderate rebel forces sought refuge in the only option they had left.”

Read More

DAY IN PHOTOS!!!!!!!!!!!!

1

Pedestrians pass before Storm Troopers at a toy shop in Tokyo. May 4th is called the "Star Wars Day" among Star Wars fans as the famous phrase "May the Force be with you" in the movie sounds like "May the 4th be with you."

2

A young Indian Buddhist monk opens the petals of a lotus flower as he sits with others while offering prayers on the occasion of Buddha Purnima in Bangalore, during the 2559th Buddha Jayanthi or birth celebrations of Buddha.

3

Men duck for cover as shots are fired in Bujumbura, Burundi.

4

A competitor goes down steps of an alley during the Favelas Mountain Bike circuit at Turano shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 3, 2015.

5

Nepalese Buddhists light incense sticks at the Boudhanath Stupa during Buddha Jayanti, or Buddha Purnima, festival in Kathmandu.

6

Israeli security forces scuffle with a demonstrater during a protest called by members of the Ethiopian community against alleged police brutality and institutionalized discrimination in Tel Aviv, May 03, 2015.

7

A group of 1000 customers receive a facial massage at a sports center in Jinan, Shandong province, China.

8

A member of Afghan security force inspects the site of a suicide attack in Kabul.

9

Wax statues at the Workhouse Prison Museum in Lorton, Virginia, show the 1917 force-feeding of Lucy Burns, an American suffragist and women's rights advocate who was on a hunger strike. (Photo by Diaa Bekheet)

10

A Chinese girl looks up while playing in a bed of blooming flowers at the Fragrant Hills Park in suburban Beijing.

11

 A woman walks along the rows of small stone statues of "jizo" representing the unborn children at Zojoji Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Jizo, which is one of the most beloved figures of Japanese Buddhism, are believed to protect deceased children.

12

A worker of the recently closed Swan garments factory covers her face with a scarf to shelter herself from the sun as she participates in a protest outside the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Export Association (BGMEA) office in Dhaka.

Read More

Day in photo!!!

 
12

A worker of the recently closed Swan garments factory covers her face with a scarf to shelter herself from the sun as she participates in a protest outside the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Export Association (BGMEA) office in Dhaka.

Read More

Kerry to Discuss Yemen Crisis With Saudis

 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he will discuss a proposed "humanitarian pause" for war-ravaged Yemen when he travels to Saudi Arabia later Wednesday.
For more than a month, Saudi Arabia has conducted airstrikes against Houthi rebels trying to overthrow the Yemeni government. Attempts by international relief groups to deliver humanitarian aid, including fuel and other commercial goods, has been severely hampered by the fighting.
“The harsh restrictions on importations imposed by the coalition for the past six weeks, added to the extreme fuel shortages, have made the daily lives of Yemenis unbearable, and their suffering immense,” Cedric Schweizer, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, said in a statement Monday.
VOA's Pam Dockins, who is traveling with Kerry, said the secretary of state also announced $68 million in new U.S. aid to Yemen during a stop in the East African nation of Djibouti Wednesday.
The State Department said the funds will support agencies providing food, water, shelter and other assistance to 16 million Yemenis in need.
Djibouti meeting
In Djibouti, Kerry met with President Ismail Omar Guelleh and Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, and thanked them for their assistance to hundreds of Americans who sought refuge from the violence in Yemen, which is located just across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti.
A day after becoming the first secretary of state to visit Somalia, Kerry is also the first to go to Djibouti.
Kerry was set to meet later Wednesday with U.S. officials at the U.S. military base Camp Lemmonier. The U.S. military installment in Djibouti, a former French colony, has become an important part of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and eastern Africa.
The secretary of state heads to Saudi Arabia later Wednesday. Later in the week, he travels to France for talks on regional security and ceremonies marking the end of World War Two in Europe.

Read More

Tanzania Delays Referendum on Constitution

DAR ES SALAAM— Tanzania has postponed a referendum on a new constitution after delays in registering voters, the electoral body said Thursday.
The postponement heightened tensions over the charter, which the main opposition parties have rejected. The delay also could complicate presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held in October.
The new constitution would replace one passed in 1977, when the state was under one-party rule. The opposition said it was approved last year without a quorum by an assembly dominated by President Jakaya Kikwete's Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party, which has been in power since Tanzania's independence from Britain in 1961.
The electoral commission said it had not received enough biometric voter registration kits to enable the vote on the constitution to take place as planned on April 30.
"The previously announced referendum ... has been postponed until the National Electoral Commission announces a new date," it said in a statement. "Since the registration of voters has not been completed, the electoral commission will not be able to proceed with the referendum on the new constitution."
Before quitting the constitutional assembly last April, opposition parties and civil society groups had sought limits on presidential powers and a federal system of government.
A group of bishops has urged Christian worshippers to vote against the proposed constitution, saying it was not written by an inclusive assembly. Kikwete, a moderate Muslim, warned clerics not to meddle in politics and said tensions between Muslims and Christians threatened peace.
Attacks on Christian and Muslim leaders over the past few years have raised concerns of an escalation of sectarian violence in relatively stable and secular Tanzania, east Africa's second-largest economy.
Tanzania's population of 45 million is roughly evenly split between Muslims and Christians.

Read More