Current World Issues

Indefinite imprisonment or a one-way ticket. These were the options Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to African refugees and migrants in Israel earlier in January. Describing the 40,000-strong community as "infiltrators", Netanyahu said they had "to  cooperate with us and leave voluntarily, respectably, humanely and legally, or we will have to use other tools at our disposal, which are also according to the law". The bid to remove African refugees - mostly Sudanese and Eritreans - is not new. Those who have made their way across the Israeli border irregularly have for years faced discrimination, exclusion and imprisonment. But the decision to offer imprisonment or relocation to a third country, presumably Rwanda or Uganda - though both countries deny having an agreement with Israel - has outraged human rights groups and the United Nations. "In the latest chapter of its long-standing quest to dodge its refugee protection duti...

I have a film script to sell you. It involves a shy but quietly seething public servant in America who believes his country, complacent and somnolent, is on the brink of terrible catastrophe. Only he can save it. Only he can save the world, in fact. Ready?  We open in Hawaii. Fade from palm trees and the beaches below Diamond Head to the drab interior of the state’s emergency management office. Our hero is staring gravely at a computer screen, weighing his approaching perfidy, sweat on his brow. He has been assigned a routine safety drill. Will he, as he has been instructed, click the tab that merely simulates sending out text messages to the entire populace warning that ballistic missiles are on their way and will shortly smash into the archipelago? Or will he disobey orders and send the message for real, tell the islanders that missiles are indeed inbound when he knows it’s a lie? We know his answer from the ominous turn in the music score. Violins and horns. No one is...

New York, USA  - Members of the Salvadoran community in the US have expressed their "devastation" after President Donald Trump's government said it would stop providing legal status and the ability to work to some 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador. The move, announced on Monday by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), gave  Salvadoran holders of  Temporary Protected Status (TPS) until September 9, 2019,  to leave or find a legal way to stay in the country. The US government had originally granted Salvadorans special protection status after two earthquakes killed nearly 8,000 people in 2001. "Based on careful consideration of available information, including recommendations received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, the Secretary determined that the original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist," the DHS said in a statement. 'Devastating' Rosa Cecilia Martinez, originally from El Congo in El Salvado...