Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: IPS - Middle East & North Africa: ‘I Sold My Sister for 300 Dollars’

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

IPS - Middle East & North Africa: ‘I Sold My Sister for 300 Dollars’



	‘I Sold My Sister for 300 Dollars’ Annabell Van den Berghe Amani has just turned 22. Two months ago she fled from the civil war in Syria and left her house in capital Damascus. After a dangerous nightlong trip she arrived at Zaatari, the refugee camp just over the border in Jordan, where her parents and two sisters had already lived for over a year. In ... MORE > >

	Jordan's Farmers Struggle to Weather Climate Change Elizabeth Whitman Abu Waleed isn't quite sure where to begin his litany of grievances. Bugs that chomp their way through the mint he grows, or the dry well that forces him to pump water from a half kilometre away? Or perhaps the 160 dinars he spent on spinach seeds only to see scant growth after planting. For the ... MORE > >

	For Kurdish Women, It’s a Double Revolution Karlos Zurutuza "I got married when I was 14 and I already had four children at 20," recalls Nafia Brahim. In her fifties now, she is working hard so that no other woman loses control of her life. Brahim is one of 12 members of the assembly that runs the Centre for Training and Empowerment of Women in Qamishli, ...MORE > >

	A ‘Green Intifadah’ Takes Root Pierre Klochendler “O green Battir, mother of the air,” Mariam Ma’mmar sings in praise of her village. As the hot season draws to a close, the land – her people’s strength – dries up. Not here in her Battir, where a peaceful form of resistance against the Israeli occupation is taking root. The 5,000 people of ... MORE > >

	Iraq Retakes Washington Centre-Stage, Briefly Jim Lobe Ten and a half years after invading U.S. troops ousted President Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, Iraq re-emerged here this week, if only briefly, as a major foreign policy agenda item. The occasion was the visit of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki whose main purpose was to secure greater U.S. ...MORE > >

	Fragile Peace Holds on a Syrian Island Karlos Zurutuza "The whole region is under control but be careful in the city centre," says a Kurdish militiaman at the eastern gate of Qamishli, 600 km northeast of capital Damascus, confirming rumours about breaches in Syria’s relatively stable northeast. Sandwiched between Turkey and Syria, this city of ...MORE > >

	Saudi Arabia, Sans Human Rights, Seeks Council Seat Thalif Deen When Saudi Arabia permitted women to vote but not drive, a newspaper cartoon last year captured the double standard with dark irony. As a group of women in burqa wait in line to vote at a polling station in Riyadh, an aggressive-looking polling agent tells the women, "We have a small problem ... MORE > >

OP-ED: Bahraini Opposition Shuns Bogus Dialogue Emile Nakhleh Bahraini opposition groups announced on Tuesday their opposition to participating in the dialogue that is supposed to start tomorrow. According to the Bahrain Mirror, the five opposition groups that signed the joint statement included al-Wifaq, Wa’d, al-Minbar, al-Tajammu’, and al-Ikha’. The ... MORE > >

U.S. Jews Less Hawkish on Iran Jim Lobe Despite renewed calls in Congress for increasing pressure on Iran, support for a U.S. attack against the Islamic Republic has declined markedly over the past year, according to the latest in an annual series of polls carried out by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Asked whether they would ... MORE > >

	Syrians Under Siege Now in Egypt Hisham Allam Mahmoud Abu Yousef, 28, sits in one of the suburban subway stations of Egyptian capital Cairo selling socks. He had fled Syria with his wife and one-year-old child this February after his parents and three brothers were killed in the civil war that has been raging in his country since March ... MORE > >

	“Terrorist Groups Are Displacing Kurdish People” Karlos Zurutuza Kurdish fighters have emerged as a powerful player in the Syrian war thanks to the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG - “People's Protection Units”), a seemingly well-organised armed group which has so far proved capable of defending the territory it claims in northern Syria. IPS spoke to Redur Khalil ...MORE > >

	Refugees Eating Dogs to Beat Starvation Mutawalli Abou Nasser Acute food shortages have reached desperate levels in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. Leading religious figures in the camps have issued a fatwa permitting the killing and consumption of cats, dogs, mice, rats and donkeys. “We have been under siege for three months. There is nothing left ... MORE > >