Syrian business owners who fled to Egypt give up on going back
Many Syrian industrialists and factory owners have relocated their businesses to Egypt, part of the economic and brain drain Syria’s civil war is causing.
By Raja Abdulrahim
REHAB, Egypt – As fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo intensified last fall, Khalid Sabbagh decided it was time to move his business abroad.
He and his family had already fled months earlier to the safety of this palm-tree-lined Cairo suburb. But as Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, descended further into the warfare that has ravaged much of his nation, Sabbagh finally decided to move his upholstery factory to Egypt and start anew.
Since antigovernment activists began their struggle to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, more than 1.6 million Syrians have fled the fighting, many to neighboring countries where they wait to return to their homes.
Army’s role in fall of Mohamed Morsi stirs fears among Egyptian protesters
The part of the armed forces and police in toppling the former president has gained praise but activists warn against ‘military fascism’
Patrick Kingsley in Cairo
The Observer, Sunday 14 July 2013On Friday night, the five-mile drive between Tahrir Square in central Cairo and the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque to the east was a journey between two parallel universes. At Rabaa, the ground zero of pro-Morsi support for the last fortnight, protesters chanted against General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the man who forced Mohamed Morsi from office.
But in Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands gathered on 30 June to call for Sisi’s intervention, and where thousands more gathered to break their Ramadan fast on Friday, few would say a word against him. Many even wore his photograph around their necks.
“This was not a military coup,” said Maluq el-Batrawy, a veiled 56-year-old, sitting in a wheelchair, and holding a picture of the general. “Sisi was following the people’s will.”
Models point to rapid sea-level rise from climate change
July 14, 2013 – 7:58AM
Sea levels could rise by 2.3 metres for each degree celsius that global temperatures increase and they will remain high for centuries to come, according to a new study by the leading climate research institute.
Anders Levermann said his study for the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research was the first to examine evidence from climate history and combine it with computer simulations of contributing factors to long-term sea-level increases: thermal expansion of oceans, the melting of mountain glaciers and the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Scientists say global warming is responsible for the melting ice. A U.N. panel of scientists, the IPCC, says heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels are nudging up temperatures. A small number of scientists dismiss human-influenced global warming, arguing natural climate fluctuations are responsible.
Seven peacekeepers killed in Darfur
Seven peacekeepers were killed and 17 wounded when they came under heavy fire from gunmen in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region on Saturday.
14 JUL 2013 06:18 REUTERS
Law and order has collapsed in much of Darfur, where mainly African tribes took up arms in 2003 against the Arab-led government in Khartoum, which they accuse of discriminating against them.
Violence has surged since January as government forces, rebels and Arab tribes, armed by Khartoum early in the conflict, fight over resources and land. Peacekeepers often get attacked when they try to find out what is happening on the ground.
A large group of unknown gunmen attacked a patrol in an area in South Darfur where peacekeeping is the responsibility of Tanzanian forces, the African Union/United Nations-led UNAMID force said. Reinforcements managed to rescue the peacekeepers after an “extended firefight”.
Thailand has a new popular sensation – Hitler
In Bangkok, grinning kids pose for photos next to cartoon effigies of the man responsible for the deaths of 12 million people during the Holocaust.
By Flora Bagenal, Contributor
It started as a craze for T-shirts printed with cartoon images of Hitler’s face. This dubious trend among teenagers in Thailand soon moved on to include SS style bike helmets, temporary swastika tattoos, and pictures of cute teddy bears doing the Nazi salute.
Soon, kids were seen on the streets of Bangkok posing for photos, grinning next to cartoon effigies of the man responsible for the deaths of 12 million people during the Holocaust. Then it emerged other incidents had taken place including a Nazi themed school fashion show and a sports day parade in the northern city of Chang Mai in which a group of students dressed up as SS soldiers as a surprise for their teachers.“Hitler Chic,” as it was dubbed in the media last year, has quickly snowballed in Thailand, revealing a lack of historical education and awareness in a country that was left largely untouched by World War II.
Bomber boys of Balochistan: Kids as young as 11 held over insurgent attacks in Pakistan
By Mujeeb Ahmed and Amna Nawaz, NBC News
QUETTA, Pakistan – In Pakistan’s conflict-torn Balochistan, boys as young as 11 are being paid $20 to carry out bomb attacks by a militant separatist group that’s been fighting the government for years.
Pakistani authorities discovered a network of child bombers after a 14-year-old was caught with a bomb in a shopping bag in March in Balochistan, a resource-rich province bordering Iran that has been wracked by violence for decades.
The boy, Sabir, who was only identified by his first name, was apologetic and asked for forgiveness after he was caught.
Recent Comments