Tag: Internally displaced people

Film fundraiser for Myanmar IDPs in Thailand, Sponsored by the U.K. Government

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Min Maw Kun at Federation Square in Melbourne. Credit: Supplied/Min Maw Kun (source)

Film fundraiser for Myanmar IDPs in Chiang Mai, Thailand

A film fundraising event for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar, who have had to flee their homes due to conflict, was held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on Monday. The films “Wide Awake,” starring Min Maw Kunn, and “Together,” starring members of the resistance to the 2021 military coup, were screened at the Chiang Mai University (CMU) Faculty of Mass Communications.

“All of the costs [associated with the film screenings] were proudly covered by Together Productions. One hundred percent of all proceeds from [the] event will be donated to IDPs,” said Min Maw Kun, a Myanmar actor and musician.

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Syria’s Rojava [Where They Run Torture Camps] Is in Grave Danger +

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Federalization of Syria a.k.a. Balkanization

Syria’s Rojava Revolution Is in Grave Danger (Reason magazine)

If the Kurdish-Arab alliance unravels, the U.S. military may decide to directly back Arab tribes as a bulwark against Iran and the Islamic State, according to Nicholas Heras, who has advised the U.S.-led military coalition in Syria and is now senior director for strategy at the nonprofit New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. In 2019, when former President Donald Trump wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the Trump administration considered a strategy of letting the Kurdish forces fall to Turkey and buying off Arab tribes.

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The United States has, directly and indirectly, backed all sides of the fight. Turkey is a NATO ally. Some of the SNA [Syrian National Army] units now attacking Kobane had received weapons and training from the CIA and the U.S. military. (After the Trump administration cut off support, a U.S. official condemned these same factions as “thugs, bandits, and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth,” and the Biden administration imposed human rights sanctions.) Meanwhile, several hundred U.S. troops are embedded with the SDF.

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In his Sunday victory speech about the fall of the Assad government, President Joe Biden said that he wanted to support an “independent, sovereign—an independent—independent—I want to say it again—sovereign Syria.” But U.S. policy at the moment seems to be creating the opposite: a Syria chopped up [Balkanization] by foreign powers.

Rojava is also known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

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150,000 IDPs have returned to occupied territories, 70,000 to Mariupol alone – Ukrainian MP

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Maksym Tkachenko, a Ukrainian MP from Servant of the People party, states that over 150,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, with approximately one-third of those who fled during the full-scale war returning to Mariupol.

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Details: The main reason for the return of internally displaced individuals to the occupied territories, according to Tkachenko, is that they were unable to start a new life in Ukrainian-controlled territory because they “did not receive proper assistance from the state – no housing, no social support, compensation, work, etc.”

According to him, a big percentage of IDPs “could not find work because of the sceptical attitude of employers towards them, and all those offers that are provided to IDPs are actually very low-paid.”

He asserted that these people face prejudice in the labour market. According to Tkachenko, their incomes seldom reach UAH 8,000-12,000 (US$194 to US$290), while the cost of renting housing in Ukraine’s relatively safe districts begins at UAH 10,000. At the same time, when IDPs start working, they lose their entitlement to receive state assistance to cover the expense of renting accommodation. At the same time, there are very few sites that provide “acceptable living conditions” for free.

150,000 IDPs have returned to occupied territories, 70,000 to Mariupol alone – Ukrainian MP

Related:

Videos from Mariupol

The racial and class question

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The racial and class question

Virtually forgotten due to the discourse of Ukrainian unity and the general lack of interest in analyzing the nuances of events, the racial and class question is going virtually unnoticed in this war. If the Donbass conflict had a proletarian aspect that the press mocked in the first weeks of the DPR due to those Soviet-looking press conferences of workers and academics, in the current context, there have not even been any such comments. Presented as a war of national liberation, no aspect other than nationalism has deserved much mention in the Western press or in academia. Volodymyr Ishchenko and Ilya Matveev, who have sought to study the class aspect in the outbreak of the conflict, are the rare exception. To Ischenko’s surprise, RFE/RL published an article last September that dealt, albeit in generalities and without great depth, with the increase in inequality that war implies, an aspect that is, on the other hand, perfectly evident. “As the war drags on, the gaps in Ukrainian society are widening,” the American media headlines.

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Dehumanization, Lack of Empathy for Palestinians Is Alarming—and Dangerous’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The scale and brutality of Hamas’s grisly attack on Israel last Saturday, in which at least 1,300 Israeli men, women, and children were brutally murdered, has understandably triggered a massive outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with Israel from around the world, particularly in the United States, Europe and other western nations.

Dehumanization, Lack of Empathy for Palestinians Is Alarming—and Dangerous’ (archive)

Israeli Forces Accused of Using White Phosphorus in Gaza’s North (+Video)

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Reports suggest that Israeli forces have employed white phosphorus, a substance internationally banned, in densely populated areas in the northern Gaza Strip, as stated by Palestinian media.

Israeli Forces Accused of Using White Phosphorus in Gaza’s North (+Video)

Related:

Palestinians in Gaza fear the worst as Israel bombs fall

The Israeli army struck with fighter jets and drones, and also from the sea. Local sources in Gaza report the use of phosphorus bombs. On numerous occasions, Israeli planes bombed without warning. On Saturday night, 18 members of the Shabat family were killed in a bombing raid in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, while 12 members of the Kouta family perished under the rubble of their house. On Sunday evening and Monday morning, 19 members of the Abu Quta family and 19 people from the Abu Hilal family, including women and children, were killed in Rafah, in the south of Gaza.

Sudan’s warring sides send envoys for talks in Saudi Arabia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

ASWAN, Egypt (AP) — Sudan’s two warring generals sent their envoys on Friday to Saudi Arabia for talks aimed at firming up a shaky cease-fire after three weeks of fierce fighting that has killed hundreds and pushed the African country to the brink of collapse, three Sudanese officials said.

Sudan’s warring sides send envoys for talks in Saudi Arabia

Related:

Role of US troops in Sudan to shift as Biden administration sees no quick end to fighting

H/T: Emil Cosman

The Homeland or Death: Accomplishments of the Traoré Government in Burkina Faso

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Who is Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla?

Burkina Faso cheered and celebrated at the news of Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla’s appointment to office as prime minister on October 21st, 2022. While there are many new faces and figures in Burkinabé politics right now, Kyélem de Tambèla is a familiar face to many Burkinabé who have known him for decades. In other circumstances this label may be given out too freely but, Kyélem de Tambèla has rightfully earned the title of Sankarist as demonstrated by his own background.

The Homeland or Death: Accomplishments of the Traoré Government in Burkina Faso

H/T(YouTube): Traoré & Burkina Faso oust the West for a Pan-African & Multi-Polar Future

Quake Response in Syria Faces Obstacles, Says Top U.N. Aid Official

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A top U.N. humanitarian official said damage to roads, fuel shortages and harsh winter weather in Syria were hampering the agency’s response to an earthquake on Monday that killed more than 1,200 in the country and left millions in need of aid.

Quake Response in Syria Faces Obstacles, Says Top U.N. Aid Official

Previously:

Western selective humanitarianism, Syria earthquake falls on deaf ears