Dilip Simeon's blog

Crises of violence, conflict and disaster caused more than 31 million people to flee their homes in 2016. That’s about one person internally displaced per second, a new joint report from the  Norwegian Refugee Council  and  Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre  reveals. There are currently twice as many internally displaced persons, or IDPs, as refugees worldwide, but the issue of internal displacement remains largely neglected on the global policy agenda, the organizations warned Monday. Many people who flee their countries as refugees are later forced to return home, only to become displaced internally, the report said. Last year, natural disaster was by far the largest source of displacement. Violence and conflict together resulted in nearly 7 million new cases, at a rate of about 15,000 per day. This included some 922,000 cases in the  Democratic Republic of Congo , 824,000 in  Syria  and 659,000 in  Iraq . The global popul...

In August 2015 Wang Quanzhang was detained by the Chinese authorities. In that he was not alone. The nationwide series of raids that summer saw more than 200 lawyers, legal assistants and human rights activists brought in for questioning. But almost two years on, Mr Wang is the only lawyer from whom nothing has been heard at all. "I don't know whether he's alive or dead," his wife Li Wenzu told me. "I have had no information at all. He has simply disappeared from the face of the earth. It is so scary, so brutal." Li Wenzu fears her husband is being punished for a failure to compromise China puts leading human rights lawyer Xie Yang on trial for 'inciting subversion' China's "709" crackdown as it's now known - a reference to 9 July, the date it began - is widely seen as a sign of a growing intolerance of dissent under President Xi Jinping. Of the large number of people initially detained, around two dozen have been pursu...

Thomas Kühne: Belonging and Genocide: Hitler's Community, 1918-1945 Reviewed by  Jochen Böhler This is an interesting essay on a difficult question: What were the bonds between the German society and the Nazi mass crimes? The question has rarely been dealt with so radically: According to Kühne, the entire German “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft) was not only aware of, but – both directly and indirectly – involved in these crimes (p. 3-4). HITLER'S WORLD The first chapter (Craving Community – World War I and the Myth of Comradeship) demonstrates how the loss of orientation in the wake of industrialization at the end of the 19th century resulted in stratification and social tensions within the German society (for example Protestants against Catholics, socialists and workers against ruling classes). Neither the so called “Spirit of 1914” nor the party truce (Burgfrieden) were able to bridge these gaps. Other countries such as England and France were not free of...

It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world’s most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity’s food supply forever. But the  Global Seed Vault , buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel. The vault is on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen and contains almost a million packets of seeds, each a variety of an important food crop. When it was opened in 2008, the deep permafrost through which the vault was sunk was expected to provide “ failsafe ” protection against “the challenge of natural or man-made disasters”. But  soaring temperatures in the Arctic  at the end of the  world’s hottest ever recorded year  led to melting and heavy rain, when light snow should have been falling. “It was not in our plans to think that the permafrost would not be there and that it would ...

Iranian President  Hassan Rouhani  is to claim re-election with a landslide victory, in a ringing endorsement of his efforts to re-engage with the West and offer greater freedoms at home. With a huge turnout, polling stations stayed open until midnight in parts of the country, defying worries that moderates disillusioned by the weak economy or slow pace of change would not vote. Preliminary results from Iran’s interior ministry suggested Rouhani would return to power with a bigger mandate than he had after his original 2013 win, driven by a boldly reformist campaign. Iran’s interior ministry said Rouhani was ahead, with 22.8 million votes to  his conservative rival Ebrahim Raisi’s  15.5 million, with almost all votes counted. The government said over 40 million people voted, out of 56 million who were eligible. Officials plan to announce exact voter turnout later today. “Hope prevailed over isolation,” former president and key Rouhani ally Mohammad Khatami p...

The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly  80 countries  now hosting U.S. bases (who often lack the power to ask their “guests” to leave).  They are part of a historically  unprecedented global network  of military installations the United States has built or occupied since World War II. Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are around  800 U.S. bases  in  foreign countries . That number was recently even higher, but it still almost certainly represents a record for any nation or empire in  history . Much  outrage  has been expressed in recent weeks over President Donald Trump’s invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, whose “war on drugs” has led to  thousands  of  extrajudicial killings . Criticism of Trump was especially intense given his similarly warm public support for othe...

Poppy McPherson  in Yangon Myanmar  must do more to prevent the drastic escalation of religious intolerance and violence following clashes between ultranationalist Buddhists and minority Muslims in Yangon, a senior UN envoy has said. Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, called on the year-old National League for Democracy government led by  Aung San Suu Kyi  to strengthen its efforts to curb hate speech and violence drummed up by nationalist groups.  “I have, in the past, raised concerns regarding incidents of hate speech, incitement to discrimination, hatred and violence, and of religious intolerance, and these appear to be drastically escalating,” she said. “I believe that the spread of anti-Muslim sentiments and rhetoric is not receiving the serious attention that it requires, and is too often left unchecked by the authorities. This cannot be tolerated any longer. The government must step up to take more concerted effort...