For the first time, South Sudan and Kosovo have been recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Kosovo, which was a province of the former Yugoslavia, will have 8 athletes competing; and a good shot for a medal in women's judo: Majlinda Kelmendi is considered a favorite. She's ranked first in the world in her weight class.

(PHOTO: Workers set up camp at Santiago's Rio Mapocho/Mason Bryan, The Santiago Times)Chile nears 1 month without mail service as postal worker protests continue. This week local branches of the 5 unions representing Correos de Chile voted on whether to continue their strike into a 2nd month, rejecting the union's offer. For a week the workers have set up camp on the banks of Santiago's Río Mapocho displaying banners outlining their demands; framing the issue as a division of the rich & the poor. The strike’s main slogan? “Si tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos,” it reads - if it affects 1 of us, it affects all of us. (Read more at The Santiago Times)

WHO convenes emergency talks on MERS virus

(PHOTO: Saudi men walk to the King Fahad hospital in the city of Hofuf, east of the capital Riyadh on June 16, 2013/Fayez Nureldine)The World Health Organization announced Friday it had convened emergency talks on the enigmatic, deadly MERS virus, which is striking hardest in Saudi Arabia. The move comes amid concern about the potential impact of October's Islamic hajj pilgrimage, when millions of people from around the globe will head to & from Saudi Arabia. WHO health security chief Keiji Fukuda said the MERS meeting would take place Tuesday as a telephone conference & he told reporters it was a "proactive move". The meeting could decide whether to label MERS an international health emergency, he added. The first recorded MERS death was in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia & the number of infections has ticked up, with almost 20 per month in April, May & June taking it to 79. (Read more at Xinhua)

HUM HUMOR

"CLIMATE CHANGE: EVERYWHERE"

CARTOON: Peter Broelman, Australia/BROELMAN.com.au)

LINKS TO OTHER STORIES

Dreams and nightmares - Chinese leaders have come to realize the country should become a great paladin of the free market & democracy & embrace them strongly, just as the West is rejecting them because it's realizing they're backfiring. This is the "Chinese Dream" - working better than the American dream. Or is it just too fanciful? By Francesco Sisci

The South: Busy at the polls - South Korea's parliamentary polls will indicate how potent a national backlash is against President Lee Myung-bak's conservatism, perceived cronyism & pro-conglomerate policies, while offering insight into December's presidential vote. Desire for change in the macho milieu of politics in Seoul can be seen in a proliferation of female candidates. By Aidan Foster-Carter

Pakistan climbs 'wind' league - Pakistan is turning to wind power to help ease its desperate shortage of energy,& the country could soon be among the world's top 20 producers. Workers & farmers, their land taken for the turbine towers, may be the last to benefit. By Zofeen Ebrahim

Entries in NEMA
(1)

A Nigerian migrant worker who fled the unrest in Libya waits at the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Ras Jdir. CREDIT: AlertNet(HN, March 6, 2011) - Officials in African countries receiving repatriated migrants from Libya have expressed surprise at the high proportion of women and children among the masses of fit young men exiting the chaotic country.

In one relief flight late this week to the Nigerian capital of Abuja, as many as 30 percent were women and children - among them infants, said an official at from the Nigeria Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), who was greeting a new batch of arrivals at Abuja International Airport.

"I even saw a few women breastfeeding their babies," said the official who asked not to be identified.

He added: "We have even seen some women arriving on their own. They were in Libya doing artisan work or the like."

Last week, a senior official from Ghana said that most of the returnees arriving from Libya to Accra were "undocumented and illegal immigrants."

Asked if some of the migrants were asylum-seekers, the official shrugged his shoulders.

NEMA officials awaiting the next batch of Nigerian migrants this weekend at Abuja International Airport CREDIT: HUMNEWSThe NEMA officials echoed comments of authorities in other Sub-Saharan countries that many are arriving without passports or any sort of documentation. Exiting migrants say their documents and back pay have been retained by their employers or taken as they fled the chaos.

With travel rebounding after a prolonged recession, there are few assets available for deployment for the massive repatriation efforts. NEMA has been chartering Egypt Air aircraft but using commercial jets from as far away as Kabul, the official said.

Asked what the arriving women and children need most, the NEMA official said basic items such as milk and blankets. Upon arrival in Abuja the migrants are immediately transported to their places of origin. "As much as possible we try not to keep them here in Abuja," the official said. Those who must stay are accommodated in a UN camp near the airport.

UNICEF said that while numbers of families crossing the border into Tunisia are reported as relatively low to date, it is concerned that within Libya, children and women have been severely affected by the unrest.

As HUMNEWS reported yesterday, the massive influx of migrant workers to struggling African nations is creating new strains. Nigeria, Niger, Tunisia andEgypt - among others - are either recovering from prolonged economic downturns or from revolutions that have disrupted normal economic recovery such as tourism.

For Egypt, which had an estimated 1.5 million migrant workers in Libya, the sudden halt in remittances will place a huge strain on already vulnerable families. Even if each migrant sent $100-a--month back to their Egyptian families, that adds up to about $150m a month or $1.8bn-a-year.

The NEMA official said the country still had some ways to go before it could suspend the relief operation as there were stranded Nigerians in Tunisia as well as Egypt.

According to one published report, late last week concerned families of Nigerians still stranded in Libya, stormed the Corporate Headquarters of NEMA to express their fears over the fate of their beloved ones not yet evacuated from Tripoli.

According to a report today in Al Masry Al Youm ( الرئيسية) of Egypt, human rights advocates warn that poor, Sub-Saharan African countries may be unable to provide sufficient support to their expatriate populations and are leaning on European countries to help evacuate vulnerable migrants to safety. The newspaper says the African Union has come in for criticism for its silence on the plight of African migrant workers in Libya.

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HUMNEWS: CLOSING THE GEOGRAPHIC GAP IN MEDIA. Human Media, 2017.
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