Salem-News.com Poverty articles Page 9

UN Refugee Agency helps 200,000 vulnerable Afghans during cold winter months

As in previous years, the UN refugee agency’s assistance focuses on isolated rural places of high return.

(KABUL) - Winter is often the worst time of year for very vulnerable displaced Afghan families. But once again, UNHCR and its partners are delivering winter supplies to help these families, whether returning refugees or internally displaced, face the freezing temperatures.

As part of a coordinated response, together with Afghan authorities and other aid agencies, UNHCR will provide around 34,500 Afghan families – more than 200,000 individuals – with blankets, plastic sheets, fuel, and warm clothes such as sweaters, shawls, gloves, socks and waterproof shoes to stay warm and dry.

Busan summit must not miss vital opportunity to end aid dependency says ActionAid

Currently just 55% of aid worldwide is 'real aid' according to ActionAid’s Real Aid 3 report released earlier this year.

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - The international community must seize the chance to put countries in the driving seat of their own development, anti-poverty agency ActionAid says, as the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness opens in Busan, Korea.

ActionAid is calling for donors to agree to fund developing country government plans which directly benefit poor communities and enable citizens to hold their governments to account.

A Call to Boycott trade investment in Rwanda

The RPP are calling to an end to this unfortunate support of a regime that has gone off rail

(MALMO, Sweden) - As you are all aware Rwanda is now at a cross-roads as the people of Rwanda continue to experience the most gruesome, inhumane and degrading abuses under the current dictatorial regime of President Kagame whose wild behaviours are beyond comprehension.

Indeed, these relentless man-made tragedies could be avoidable if the international community would continue to encourage and support a democratic and peaceful political settlement in order to allow the country to return to normalcy...

American Nightmare: Return of the Luddites

“At this moment nothing but the army preserves us from that most dreadful of all calamities, an insurrection of the poor against the rich…”

(CALGARY, Alberta) - The Luddites of the early 19th century in England have been given a bum rap. The term is now used to refer to people who are against progress or resist change, which was not the case, at all.

The Luddites of the early 19th century were desperate English workers. The Poor Law had been passed in 1601 and frequently amended, offering some help to the destitute.

RNC Condemns Attacks on Paul Rusesabagina by Kagame Regime

The RNC calls upon the Kagame regime to lay off Rwandans who have a different opinion than its own...

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - From the moment the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights announced that Paul Ruseabagina was the choice for the 2011 Lantos Human Rights Award for his role in sheltering Rwandans at Mille Collines Hotel in 1994, Kagame’s regime immediately came out with attacks against him in hopes the award would be withdrawn.

In keeping with its trademark tradition of savaging its opponents, the Kagame regime outed its full arsenal of dirty attacks...

A Graphic View of Poverty in Oregon

By 2010, Oregon's poverty rate reached 15.8 percent.

(SILVERTON, Ore.) - More Americans lived in poverty in 2010 than was reported in the official poverty statistics, according to a new, Supplemental Poverty Measure released by the U.S. Census Bureau in early November 2011. The supplemental measure did not include state-level data.

But even under the inadequate, official definition, poverty engulfs a large share of Oregonians. And the social tragedy that is poverty is getting worse.

The Critical Situation facing the Tamil People in Sri Lanka

40k or more unarmed Tamil civilians killed; 160k unaccounted for - in just five months, with no witnesses.

(BRISBANE, Aust.) - More than two years after the so called ‘end’ of the war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil people, the humanitarian situation is the most serious the Tamils in the north and east have ever faced.

In the six decades that I have campaigned for the rights of the Tamils to live with equality, dignity, safety, and now to live at all, I cannot think of any period with this dreadful of a situation.

The Forgotten Returnees

UNHCR’s most recent statistics show that at the end of 2010 there are some 141,000 Sri Lankan refugees in 65 countries.

(GENEVA) - A day in a village on the beautiful coast of northern Sri Lanka: a lady combing the hair of a small girl crouching at her feet. She leans over and whispers something to her husband who is sitting beside her holding on to two other children.

The scene could easily be captured on a picture postcard but if one looks closer the reality is grimmer. Many of the surrounding houses have been reduced to rubble or are heavily damaged: a reminder of Sri Lanka’s bloody decade long civil war.

Occupy Protests and Homelessness

It would do Americans well to set aside their biases for a moment and visit the protest camps.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - People, Occupy Protests and The Face of Homeless People, including mainstream news reporters, tend to play down the significance of the protests because so many of the "protesters" are homeless, often involved with alcohol and drug abuse, used to relieve the pain.

At first, I was discouraged by this scene, but kept going back to try to understand the root causes and dynamics of the protests.

Fahamu, `Opposing Cessation of Protection for Rwandan Refugees`

Several human rights organizations, once active in Rwanda, have been silenced...

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - In their most recent move to stop the Cessation of Protection of Rwandan Refugees, Fahamu stated the following in their petition to their supporter;

“On December 31, 2011, the UN High Commissioner for the Refugees and several states hosting Rwandan refugees are considering invoking the ‘cessation clause’ of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees...”