Six In The Morning

Bahrain’s secret terror

Desperate emails speak of ‘genocide’ as doctors who have treated injured protesters are rounded up

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Thursday, 21 April 2011

The intimidation and detention of doctors treating dying and injured pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain is revealed today in a series of chilling emails obtained by The Independent.

At least 32 doctors, including surgeons, physicians, paediatricians and obstetricians, have been arrested and detained by Bahrain’s police in the last month in a campaign of intimidation that runs directly counter to the Geneva Convention guaranteeing medical care to people wounded in conflict. Doctors around the world have expressed their shock and outrage.

Libyan refugees flee to Tunisia as government crushes western rebellion

UN agency says 11,000 have fled from western mountain region in a crisis so far overshadowed by siege of Misrata

Harriet Sherwood in Tripoli

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 April 2011

Thousands of people are fleeing heavy fighting in Libya’s western mountains region, close to the Tunisian border, as government forces seek to crush a rebellion that has been largely overshadowed by the siege of Misrata.

According to the UN agency for refugees, UNHCR, around 11,000 refugees from the area have crossed the border into Tunisia in the past 10 days, mainly from the city of Nalut.

“They are fleeing because of shelling and intensified fighting between government and opposition forces,” Firas Kayal of the UNHCR told the Guardian by phone from the Tunisian border.

Asylum seekers torch Australian detention centre in night of riots

Angry and desperate asylum-seekers have torched an immigration detention centre in Sydney, burning nine buildings to the ground after Australian authorities denied some of their requests for refugee status.

By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney 2:47AM BST 21 Apr 2011

During a night of rioting, security guards were attacked with fire extinguishers and pelted with roof tiles and timber in one of the most serious eruptions of violence among asylum-seekers in Australia, where the government’s policy of indefinite detention is a sensitive political issue.

Riot police had to be called in to quell the protest after the centre’s unarmed guards were forced to retreat in the face of the attacks.

About 100 asylum-seekers at the Villawood immigration detention centre, which houses many people whose requests for refuge have been rejected and are pending deportation, climbed onto roofs late at night and began setting fire to buildings.

Fukushima Disaster Boosts Chernobyl Tourism

A Day Trip with a Geiger Counter

By Benjamin Bidder in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Yuri Tatarchuk is standing in front of a group of visitors from Europe, Asia and America. The 38-year-old tour guide is built like a wrestler and is wearing combat boots and army fatigues.

Tatarchuk hands out Geiger counters, distributing tidbits of well-intended advice as he does so. “Distance is the best protection,” he says. “Panicking doesn’t help.”

The tourists look at Tatarchuk’s t-shirt with curiosity. The slogan on the garment, which is stretched a little over his belly, reads “Hard Rock Cafe Chernobyl.” It is Tatarchuk’s ironic take on the tourist development of the exclusion zone around the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine.

Policy of peaceful protest divides Swazi activists

 

LOUISE REDVERS Apr 21 2011 00:00

It is understood that the unions have vowed to stage regular labour demonstrations in the months ahead, culminating in a major event on September 6, the 43rd anniversary of Swaziland’s independence.

This week Mduduzi Gina, the secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, said members had resolved that the protests would continue.

“We want the removal of the government and prime minister and to have a constitutional monarch and multiparty democracy,” he said.

Foreigners put pro-democracy rallies on hold to help disaster survivors



2011/04/21

Although dictators, oppression and even war continue to cause enormous suffering in their home countries, a number of foreigners remain focused on helping survivors of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Some have been leaders in demonstrations and other activities to promote democracy in their homelands. But after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami devastated coastal areas of northeastern Japan, they shifted their attention to the victims of the disaster.

Adel Suliman, 23, a Libyan and a member of Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization Peace Boat, is working with other staff in Senshu University’s branch campus in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, a stronghold of volunteer work.