Donald Trump isn’t the only news event on Earth

While CNN and much of the world press focuses on Donald Trump’s antics, two United Nations reports documented events happening elsewhere that have all but gone unnoticed.

In Afghanistan, the 2016 Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict report recorded the highest number of civilian casualties in a single year since records started in 2009. There has been a 24% increase in the number of children killed and injured compared to 2015.

More human rights violations documented against members of the Rohingya community in Myanmar include the burning of houses and the destruction of property, looting, beatings, sexual violence, forced disappearances and killings. Stories include mothers seeing their children being killed, women being gang-raped by up to eight men, people being rounded up and taken away, and the army deliberately setting fire to houses with families inside.

How many of you reading know this is happening in Afghanistan or Myanmar?

People throughout the US standing up against Trump’s executive order is a welcome corrective to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment and activity in much of Europe and the US in the last few years. However, it seems we only care about discrimination when committed by certain governments.

[The Guardian]

Paper gliders to deliver lifesaving humanitarian supplies to remote regions

Otherlab, an engineering research and development lab based in San Francisco, has created the world’s most advanced industrial paper airplanes. The paper gliders look almost like stealth fighters, capable of carrying more than two pounds of supplies like blood and vaccines to those in need. And they could totally transform humanitarian aid for people in remote regions.

The gliders are made from an inexpensive material called mycelium, designed to be aerodynamic and degradable within a matter of days.

The drones can hold canisters, “medically sensitive fluids” and batteries, delivering lifesaving items to rural areas without roads, or regions rendered inaccessible by natural disasters or war.

“We designed these to be used in areas where existing infrastructure was insufficient to get critical items — blood, medical supplies and so on — to where they needed to be,” said Mikell Taylor, Otherlab’s team lead for the project.

[Read full Mashable article]

Four ways we can strengthen humanitarian aid

In the last three decades, rates of extreme poverty and childhood mortality have fallen while access to water and schooling for the most marginalized populations has increased significantly. These achievements are not complete, perfect or irreversible. Future progress requires humanitarian agencies … to reinvent themselves by boldly pursuing what I call the four “S’s”: scale, systemic approaches, sustainability and stewardship.

Scale: Because the people in need number in the billions, our programs must stretch each dollar to serve as many as possible.

Systemic approaches: While many people picture humanitarian work as the distribution of food and medicine, such immediate aid rarely gets at the systemic causes of problems. Hunger, for example, results from myriad factors.  That is why C.R.S. uses the integral human development framework for systemic interventions.

Sustainability: We must ensure that whatever gains are made will be sustained after a development project’s funding expires. Success in this regard shifts the emphasis from what an aid agency does to what the affected community can and will do. This means investing in the capacity of local groups.

Stewardship: While the overhead costs of nonprofits receive a great deal of scrutiny, it is not the sole metric of good stewardship. Low costs do not necessarily signal that a nonprofit or government agency is making the best use of its resources; this can be discerned only through evidence-based assessments of programs.

[Excerpt of article by Carolyn Y. Woo served as president and C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services]

Armenia sending humanitarian aid to Syria

Armenia has sent approximately 40 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Syria, the latest of  several batches sent over the course of the conflict in Syria.

Both nations have maintained economic and diplomatic ties with one another despite the conflict. More than 100,000 people of Armenian descent currently reside in Syria.

[Al Masdar News]

Trudeau meets Trump

A political odd couple, President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resolutely played up their similarities at their first meeting Monday, even as obvious differences lurked behind their public smiles.

But it was hard to escape their contrasting worldviews.

Speaking to reporters, Trump defended his restrictive refugee and immigration orders, saying that “we cannot let the wrong people in.” Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to “pursue our policies of openness.”

Trudeau later acknowledged that there are times when the two countries differ. But he said, “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves.”

After Trump’s recent travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority countries, Canada offered temporary residence to any immigrants stranded in Canada. The decision was announced by Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s immigration minister. “Let me assure those who may be stranded in Canada that I will use my authority as minister to provide them with temporary residency if they need it,” said Hussen, who was born in Somalia and came to Canada as a teenage refugee.

Despite the chaos and uncertainty sparked by Trump’s travel ban, the Canadian government, led by Justin Trudeau, refrained from directly criticizing the order. Trudeau instead posted a series of tweets highlighting the stark difference between the position espoused by the Canadian and American governments. “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau tweeted.

[CNN/The Guardian]

Refugees risking life and limb to escape to Canada from the USA

Hussein Ahmed and Mohamed Hossain moved as quickly as they could through the waist-deep snow. They had never seen snow in their home country, let alone walked miles in it. They were fleeing the United States for Canada, terrified but determined to get to safety.

The two men were part of a group of five Somalis who crossed illegally through Mexico into the United States, begging for asylum there. Now they find themselves crossing a border to beg for asylum all over again. The men began having sleepless nights because of US President Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Then he signed an executive order temporarily barring refugees, and all travelers from Somalia.

That was the final sign. They hatched a plan to leave. They each paid a man $300 to take them toward Grand Forks, North Dakota. He drove them to as close as possible to the border about 8 p.m. on Friday might, the men say. They were to steer clear of the bright lights of the US border in the distance, where customs agents might turn them back or send them to jail. He told them where to walk across the land where North Dakota and Minnesota meet Manitoba.

But what was meant to be a 30-minute journey stretched into hours. “We traveled the whole day and … actually we lost the direction,” Hossain, 28, says. At one point, the men thought they might die trying to save themselves.

They had been through so much before they reached America. Ahmed says he fled death threats from Al-Shabaab. Hossain says he fled discrimination as an ethnic minority in his country, after seeing his family members threatened or killed. Ahmed left behind young children when he fled; Hossain’s mother is still in Somalia, and tried to dissuade him from making the dangerous border crossing.

When the Canadian border lights were behind them, they called 911, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers came, and the men requested asylum.

Rita Chahal, executive director of Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, has been working to help them at their moment of desperation. Workers at the “Welcome Place,” where her group operates, shuttle back and forth to the border when they get calls about new groups arriving. They give warm welcomes at the crossing, blankets to the shivering, temporary shelter and food after the long walk and translators for those who don’t speak English or French.

[CNN]

Thousands of refugees face a locked American door

One of the provisions of President Trump’s executive order on immigrationthat that has all but been ignored slashed by more than half the total number of refugees from any country and any religion who can be allowed in the United States this year.

And two-thirds of that sharply-reduced number have already been admitted.

President Obama had raised the annual global refugee quota the United States would accept, from 85,000 that had prevailed for several years to 110,000 for the 2017 fiscal year.  But President Trump’s executive order dropped that number to 50,000. Through early February, some 30,000 have already been admitted, leaving 20,000 to be allowed in through September before the doors slam on everyone.

“All of us in refugee resettlement have been deeply concerned about this,” said Chris George, executive director of New Haven-based Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services. “But no one has challenged the President’s authority in setting a ceiling on the number of refugees overall allowed into the country each year.”

According to American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, “The (Ninth Circuit) Court of Appeals did not address one way or the other the overall refugee cap.” Which should mean that it stands untouched in the executive order.

Europe, too, has slashed its quotas, but they are still substantially above the US number.

[CNN]