Category: Uncategorized

Utah and Mormons are the most generous givers in America

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Utah is tops among all 50 US states in generosity, according to a new report released this week at WalletHub. The report breaks down “generosity” into two main categories–a state’s rate of volunteerism and the percentage of income its people spend on charitable donations.

In Utah, people donate an impressive 6.6% of their income to charity. New Hampshire was the stingiest, with just 1.6% of income given away.

Utah also ranks first in the percentage of people who say they donated their time (56%) and the total number of hours they volunteered (75.6 per person, nearly four times the volunteer hours of the lowest state, Kentucky).

Given Utah’s majority Mormon population it’s not surprising that the state came first in charitable giving. According to social science research, Mormons rank first among all religious groups in the United States in terms of charitable giving, donating 5.2% of income.

That’s barely half of the 10% “gold standard” that Christians are taught to strive for. But it’s nearly two percentage points higher than the next-most-generous group, Pentecostals who give 3.4%, not to speak of Roman Catholics (1.5%), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (.9%).

The nonreligious average 1.1%.

[Religion New Service]

Media biases Aleppo vs. Mosul

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In Syria and Iraq, two large Sunni Arab urban centers –East Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq– are being besieged by pro-government forces strongly supported by foreign airpower.

In East Aleppo, some 250,000 civilians and 8,000 insurgents are under attack by the Syrian Army and supported by the Russian and Syrian air forces. The bombing of East Aleppo has rightly caused worldwide revulsion and condemnation.

But look at how differently the international media is treating a similar situation in Mosul, where one million people and an estimated 5,000 Isis fighters are being encircled by the Iraqi army with massive support from a US-led air campaign. In the case of Mosul, unlike Aleppo, the defenders are to blame for endangering civilians by using them as human shields and preventing them leaving. In East Aleppo, there are no human shields –though the UN says that half the civilian population wants to depart– but simply innocent victims of Russian savagery.

Destruction in Aleppo by Russian air strikes is compared to the destruction of Grozny in Chechnya sixteen years ago, but, curiously, no analogy is made with Ramadi, a city of 350,000 on the Euphrates in Iraq, that was 80 per cent destroyed by US-led air strikes in 2015.

The extreme bias shown in foreign media coverage of similar events in Iraq and Syria will be a rewarding subject for PhD students looking at the uses and abuses of propaganda down the ages.

[Patrick Cockburn, CounterPunch]

France evicting thousands of migrants from notorious ‘Jungle’ camp

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French security forces have started evicting the thousands of migrants living in a notorious camp known as “The Jungle” near the port of Calais. (The name “The Jungle” stems from the level of squalor and chaos.)

Authorities intend to dismantle the squalid camp that has housed thousands of people fleeing wars or poverty for a better life in Europe. People were given two choices: east or west France. NPR adds: “And once they’ve selected one of those regions, the authorities pick out one of the towns where they’ve set up refugee homes or centers.”

The approximately 450 homes or centers across the country “are intended to be temporary” and “will each hold 40 or 50 people for up to four months while their asylum cases are examined,” as The Guardian explains.

However, “those who do not claim asylum will be sent back to their country of origin,” according to the newspaper, and “almost two-thirds of those surveyed in the camp have said they do not want to be evicted and taken to French accommodation, while one-third say that they will continue to try to get to the U.K.”

Some migrants say they intend to hide within the Jungle, in hopes of avoiding being moved to another place in France.

Authorities hope the current eviction process will stand in contrast to what happened in March, The Associated Press reports, when they dismantled the southern half of the camp in a “chaotic, even brutal bulldozing operation that drew complaints from human rights groups.”

[NPR]

UN warns of world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s Boko Haram region

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Up to 80,000 children will die in northeastern Nigeria without much-needed humanitarian assistance, a senior UN official said. Boko Haram’s insurgency has left tens of thousands dead, and millions more displaced.

UN Assistant Secretary-General Toby Lanzer said that without further assistance, northern Nigeria and surrounding areas impacted by the Boko Haram militant group’s onslaught will become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The militant group’s seven-year insurgency, aimed at establishing a so-called caliphate, has left at least 20,000 people dead and displaced more than 2.5 million people in the region. The death toll is likely higher due to consequences of the conflict, including fatalities caused by severe malnutrition and lack of access to medical supplies.

“We know that over the next 12 months, 75,000 – maybe as many as 80,000 – children will die in the northeast of Nigeria, unless we can reach them with specialized therapeutic food,” Lanzer added.

More than 6 million people are described as “severely food insecure” across the Lake Chad region, according to UN figures.

[AFP]

Glaring data gap in the War Against Poverty and Disease

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It’s surprising how little data is available on the rates of everything from disease to employment in poor countries, says Trevor Mundell, president of global health for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Governments and international organizations and researchers still aren’t collecting basic statistics on a lot of major diseases in Africa. Says Mundell, “[For example] there’s a complete absence of solid data around what the dimensions of [typhoid] in Africa.”

There’s a similar problem with dengue, a very unpleasant virus that’s spread by mosquitoes. This makes it hard to set priorities for health spending, he adds. “How do you plan for the future if you don’t even know the state of the present?”

The data gap is especially noticeable when it comes to statistics on girls and women, and ending the inequality they face is a major focus of the global goals. For instance, it’s hard to get solid, comparable numbers across all countries on everything from maternal mortality to how well girls are transitioning from school into jobs to what assets women own. In some cases — domestic violence against women is a classic example — many countries don’t consider gathering this data a top concern.

As for the huge pool of data we do have — advocates say much of it is difficult to get hold of because it’s being hoarded by everyone from U.N. agencies to researchers.

Jody Heymann is dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and founding director of the affiliated World Policy Analysis Center, which is trying to gather much of this data in one place and make it comparable from country to country. Her dream is to inspire app developers to find a way to get it on smartphones.

[NPR]

Abducted Australian aid worker freed in Afghanistan

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Afghan special forces have rescued a kidnapped Australian aid worker, four months after she was taken at gunpoint in the country’s volatile east. Katherine Jane Wilson, said to be aged around 60, is “safe and well”, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said, without disclosing when she was released or who was behind her abduction.  The minister, who has previously said Australia does not pay ransom for kidnappers, voiced relief for Wilson and her family but would not provide details of how she was freed.

Unidentified masked gunmen kidnapped Wilson from Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan, in late April when she was visiting the city for a women’s embroidery project. Wilson, a well-known aid worker in the country, ran a non-governmental organisation known as Zardozi, which promotes the work of Afghan artisans — particularly women.

Following her abduction an Australian man was seized, along with an American colleague, in Kabul by gunmen wearing police uniforms. The two foreigners, professors from the American University of Afghanistan, were pulled from their vehicle earlier this month after the kidnappers smashed the passenger side window and hauled them out.

Judith D’Souza, a 40-year-old Indian employee of the Aga Khan Foundation, a prominent NGO that has long worked in Afghanistan, was also abducted near her residence in the heart of Kabul on June 9. She was rescued in July.

The abductions underscore the growing dangers faced by foreigners in Afghanistan, plagued by Taliban and other militant groups.

[Yahoo News]

The Olympic Refugee Team has its own flag and anthem

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At the opening ceremony in Rio, the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team marched in the Parade of Nations carrying flags emblazoned with the five-ring Olympics logo. It was a powerful unifying gesture in a time marked by global unrest; these ten athletes were representing not just their war-torn countries, but the world. But in a certain light, assigning this team the most universal sporting symbol on Earth was to deprive them an identity of their own. What this group really needed was its own symbol.

Now, members of the Refugee Olympic Team have that option. A non-profit called The Refugee Nation commissioned artists to develop a flag and national anthem for the Olympic team that would represent the athletes and the growing number of refugees around the world. “We felt they deserved a more unique identity.”

Refugee FlagThe flag is a banner of bright orange crossed by a single black band—colors that evoke the life jackets so many refugees have worn on their journeys to safety. “If you’ve worn a lifejacket as a refugee, you will feel something when you see this flag,” says Amsterdam-based Syrian refugee Yara Said, who designed the flag. “It’s a powerful memory.”

“The flag is a statement,” she says. “We are here, we are strong, we are human, and we’re going to go on.”

[Wired]

Israel says Gaza World Vision director diverted millions to Hamas’s military wing

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Israel’s domestic security agency accuses the Gaza head of the U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization World Vision of funneling as much as $7 million a year, some 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza, over the past 10 years to Hamas’s terror activities.

World Vision is among the largest Christian charities in the world and receives considerable funding from the United Nations and Western governments. Operating in more than 100 countries, it has a budget of $2.6 billion. In a statement Thursday, the charity said it was “shocked to learn of the charges” against Mohammed el-Halabi and called for Israel to facilitate a fair legal process.

The Shin Bet accusation said, “[Halabi] established and promoted humanitarian projects and fictitious agricultural associations that acted as cover for the transfer of monies to Hamas,” “Examples of these projects and associations include: greenhouse construction; restoration of agricultural lands; psychological and public health projects for Gaza residents; aid to fishermen; a treatment center for the physically and mentally disabled; and farmers’ associations. All of these projects and associations were used to transfer funds to Hamas.”

Halabi’s brother Hamed el-Halabi said his brother has been working for World Vision for 13 years and has managed the Gaza branch for the past 10. Halabi said of his accused brother: “He is a workaholic person; he travels a lot, so I don’t believe that he had time to meet with Hamas or any of its other factions.”

Halabi also said that World Vision had recently looked into the financial situation of its office in Gaza and spent about a month auditing documents, “without finding anything.”

A spokesman for Hamas in Gaza said that Israel’s accusations were simply “propaganda.” Hazem Qasem said that international organizations worked freely in Gaza and that Hamas did not interfere with their work or budgets. “Israel can arrest anybody at the Erez Crossing and claim he is a Hamas activist, but that doesn’t mean it is true,” Qasem said.

[Washington Post]

Continuing to fund the lost Afghanistan war

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The longest war in US history just got even longer. As NATO wrapped up its 2016 Warsaw Summit, the organization agreed to continue funding Afghan security forces through the year 2020.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced at the summit that thanks to an additional billion dollars in NATO member-country donations, the organization had come up with close to the $5 billion per year that it has pledged to the Afghan government.

Of that $5 billion you can guess who is paying the lion’s share. That’s right, the U.S.

We send $3.45 billion every year to, according to Transparency International, the third most corrupt country on earth — while Americans struggle with unemployment, stagnant wages, and inflation. That is why I always say that foreign aid is money stolen from poor people in the United States and sent to rich people overseas.

The Taliban are stronger than ever in Afghanistan. They control more territory than at any time since the original US invasion in 2001. Despite 15 years of US interventionism, nearly 2,500 dead US soldiers, and well over a trillion dollars, Afghanistan is no closer to being a model democracy than it was before 9/11. It’s a failed policy. It’s a purposeless war. It is a failed program.

It’s time to end this game and get back to the wise foreign policy of the founders: non-intervention in the affairs of others.

[Excerpts of article by Ron Paul, former Presidential hopeful and US Congressman]

The lost generation: Children in conflict zones

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A catastrophic by-product of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children. These children find themselves, through no fault of their own, not only displaced but lacking the opportunity for proper schooling and thus, denied a chance to learn and develop the necessary skills to become fully functional members of society. This lost generation is the tragedy of our time.

According to a 2015 report by UNICEF, conflict in the Middle East and North Africa region has driven 13 million children out of schools.

Unschooled children are not only a moral challenge, but also one that has negative short-term and long-term consequences both for the refugees, but also for their societies.

Besides providing an education, schools serve an important function by socializing children. In addition, children in conflict zones face severe trauma through the loss of family members to violence.

The lack of education, coupled with a sense of despair and hopelessness creates the perfect conditions for the radicalization of refugee children.  Children tired of working long hours in sweatshops for little pay tend to find the offer to fight at a salary of $400 a month particularly enticing.

Jordan and Turkey have absorbed an estimated 200,000 and 300,000 children respectively in their schooling system, which has put an incredible strain on their existing educational infrastructure.

[Al Jazeera]