The suffering of theYemencontinues along with an unjust siege that has already lasted for six long and bitter years. The Saudi-led coalition has caused much destruction in Yemenis lives, gravely damaging their living conditions and driving them into poverty. TheYemenconflict was recently ranked by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

This hardship is not only experienced by native Yemenis, but also by the African refugees coming from outsideYemens borders in search of asylum. Tragically, these refugees do not realise the extent of the catastrophic situation inYemen. Most of them think that they will be welcomed and will enjoy more rights than in other countries.

These refugees find, to their disappointment, that the Yemenis themselves are the ones who are looking for hope and for survival in the most dire of circumstances.

They arrive in a land torn between theYemenigovernment, backed by Saudi Arabia, and the Ansar Allah group, which holds the capital city, Sanaa, a conflict which has made it impossible for the two rival governments to contain and respond to Covid-19.

This long war goes hand in hand with the deterioration of the health infrastructure in theYemen, a weak national economy, and the spread of many curable diseases, such as dengue fever and cholera. The coronavirus is not the only health threat toYemens population, which has been constantly battling against pestilence and famine since the escalation of war in March 2015.

Yemenhas been exhausted due to the long years of war. And at a time when United Nations humanitarian agencies have reduced their programmes in the country, the health system has also collapsed. This has created the perfect storm for a devastating coronavirus epidemic, which is yet another hardship heaped upon a people who have already known too much.

Despite this, many refugees continue to flee from the desperate situation in their home countries. Thousands of African migrants and asylum seekers continue to flow into the country via illegal border crossings by land, sea and air.

Statistics of the International Organisation for Migration say that more than 150,000 migrants arrived inYemenin 2018, an increase of nearly 50% compared to 2017, and according to the same organisation more than 107,000 migrants arrived inYemenilands since the beginning of last year. A great number of these came from countries with substantial Muslim populations such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan. Figures from by the United Nations show that Somali refugees represent roughly 90% of refugees and asylum seekers inYemen.

Journalist and refugee rights activist Tasnim Amin has said that the conditions in which Somali and African refugees inYemenare living are tragic. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees inYemenwarns that African refugees are the most exposed to spread coronavirus, as a result of the lack of access to health care, insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and other basic services.

Earlier this year, in May, theYemeniMinister of Health in the capital of Sanaa announced that the first known death from coronavirus in the country was a Somalian refugee. He was found dead in a hotel in the capital.

Many of these refugees do not have homes, suffer from a shortage of foodstuffs and cannot access health services, which are already under severe strain. They are also prone to mistreatment by the authorities sent to manage them. Yet, despite the catastrophic scale of this problem, there is a disheartening lack of interest among aid organisations and authorities. If such neglect continues, these African refugee communities will not only suffer from coronavirus but also cholera, dengue fever, and other preventable diseases.

This is if these people manage to make the perilous crossing from Africa and into the Yemen at all. Tasnim Amin warns that if efforts are not made to limit new refugee arrivals at the Yemeni border the situation will deteriorate further. Many of the migrants died in the sea, because the smugglers throw them at a distance from the beach and some of them are not able to swim. It is a harrowing echo of Europes own migrant crisis in recent years.

Amid these conditions, African migrants in general and Somalian refugees particular have become pariahs in the Yemen. They are seen by many as a burden, and the influx of refugees is perceived to be a drain on food and medical supplies. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that Yemen cannot handle this alone, and that it requires the cooperation of the international community and regional powers to tackle this problem.

In light of these events, activists such as the civil society campaigner Basil Al-Dura has recently stressed the need to tighten the procedures and temporarily prevent entry into theYemen. This, he believes, is the only way to stop the humanitarian crisis and health catastrophe from getting even worse.

He said: a large number of African immigrants enterYemeniregions every day illegally and not subject to any medical tests for corona virus.

He added that the increased influx of refugees exacerbates the challenges of humanitarian work inYemen, because the war, the weakness of authorities and the lack of coordination between international and local organizations and theYemenigovernment all make it nearly impossible to provide effective relief.

This dilemma for African refugees and the humanitarian workers trying to help them represents a tragedy within a tragedy. At a time when the eyes of the international community are looking elsewhere, this pandemic is having a devastating impact on the people of the country and its growing refugee population.

While this continues to unfold, there is an unavoidable feeling that the world has given up on theYemen. If other countries continue to look the other way while this is unfolding, then it will get worse. In a world where we are all ever more connected, to abandon Yemen would be a terrible oversight from those who have the power to provide relief but choose to stand aside.

Haitham al-Qaoud is a freelance journalist and human rights activist from theYemen.

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Covid-19 is deepening the crisis in Yemen - Reaction - Reaction

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Just when it seems the lot of Venezuelans could get no worse, trust President Nicolas Maduro to show that the bottom is lower still. Earlier this month, Maduro dispatched troops to the Colombian border. The emergency? Tens of thousands of Venezuelans who had fled the dystopic Bolivarian republic and then been slammed by coronavirus and the economic shutdown abroad were now desperate to make their way back home. Biological weapons, Maduro called them, absurdly blaming unwilling prodigal Venezuelans for the countrys spiking contagion.

Venezuelas returnees are the most flagrant face of one of the regions least noted emergencies: the plight of hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans who escaped dead-end lives in their native lands and now, amid disease and lockdowns, find they are unwanted by their neighbors as well.

Forget for a moment the U.S. border wall and crowded detention centers along the Rio Grande; the flow of people between Latin American nations has soared in recent years. The United Nations estimates that some 10 million Latin Americans currently live in another country in the region. Economist Manuel Orozco, an expert on migration and remittances for the Inter-American Dialogue, argues in a forthcoming study that the total could be as high as 13 million, double the number from 2000.

Intraregional migration surged after the global recession in 2008, when rich nations tightened their borders. It rose again after 2010 as worsening violence, drug-related crime and political upheaval drove waves of families from at least eight Latin American and Caribbean nations to seek foreign refuge, often in the country next door. Peru and Brazil were among the five countries with the highest number of asylum applications in 2019.

Consider Nicaragua, where authoritarian Daniel Ortega has met popular unrest with brutal repression, chasing thousands over the border. In the first eight months of 2018, Costa Rica saw its foreign-born population rise to 27,000, with another 25,000 seeking formal refugee status.

The upside of this regional exodus was a spike in homebound dollars, as enterprising migrants rebuilt their lives abroad and shared the wealth with the loved ones they left behind. In a June study, Orozco concluded that 10% of the $17 billion that Latin Americans remitted last year was earned in other Latin American countries.

Another report shows that Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Paraguay netted 21% of their expatriate transfers in 2017 from within the region. Indeed, Bolivia and Paraguay captured more migrant dollars from neighboring nations than from the U.S. that year, while intraregional remittances in Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua outpaced those from Spain.

Venezuelans, again, have set the pace, with migrants sending back on average anywhere from $40 (from Colombia) to $214 (from Panama) at a time, up to a dozen times a year.The coronavirus outbreak now threatens this vital stream of regional largesse, just as it exposes how ill-prepared host countries are to manage the gathering migratory disruption. Consider that more than two-thirds of Venezuelans in Colombia lack legal immigrant status and just a quarter of them have only temporary permits.

Its unclear how many of Latin Americas internal migrants are doubling back, but relief workers and border authorities are overwhelmed. An estimated 70,000 Venezuelans had returned as of early July, with tens of thousands more on the way, according to the United Nations. The multiple-agency relief effort known as Response for Venezuelans launched to contain the crisis was budgeted at $1.41 billion; as of July 24, it had raised only $248 million.

Venezuelans are not alone. Paraguayans are returning from Argentina. Peruvians are trying to leave Chile, whose government has also flown struggling Haitians back home. Nicaraguans are packing up in Costa Rica and Panama. The U.N. also reports that the pandemic has spurred a new pattern of internal migration, with tens of thousands of families in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru quitting the cities, where infection rates are rising, for the countryside.

These newcomers performed basic, sometimes crucial, services in their host countries, from construction to care for the elderly. Armies of motorcycle deliverymen have kept Argentines fed and supplied during lockdowns. Cuban and Peruvian nurses and physicians are among the first responders of the Covid-19 crisis. Yet these guest workers have seen their welcomes vanish with their livelihoods. Many are irregular migrants, without access to health services or unemployment benefits. University graduates are unable to validate their diplomas, said Vanina Modolo, regional migration analyst for the United Nations-affiliated International Organization for Migration, in Buenos Aires.

Story continues

Even some of the most generous official relief efforts fall short: Argentinas cash benefit to help the most vulnerable through the economic shutdown includes only those foreigners with two years of proven residency.

Discrimination and xenophobia are on the rise, as migrants become easy targets for local populations facing hardships. At a time when fear of catching Covid-19 is high, migrants are also easily and unfairly stigmatized as public health threats in their adopted countries. Nor, as Venezuelans and Nicaraguans have found, are they always welcome back with open arms.

The way home is also fraught with obstacles and danger. As Latin America joined the global movement to restrict mobility and seal borders, returnees often had to find their way along unsafe routes and clandestine crossings, prey to criminal networks and traffickers.

Perhaps its a lot to ask of nations already overwhelmed by unprecedented national crises to also care for strangers in peril. Yet to protect migrants who have provided so many societies with vital service and labor is also to safeguard the native population. Latin America already confronts a public health calamity, an unprecedented economic collapse and incipient social unrest. The last thing it needs is a refugee crisis, as well.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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A Refugee Crisis Is the Last Thing Latin America Needs - Yahoo Finance

But in April, with New York in lockdown, Mr. Tzirin lost his job. When his grandfather died the following month, he was unable to send money home for the funeral a deep wound. He used to speak to his family every two to three days, but he can no longer bear it, receding into isolation and loneliness. He has not told them that he lost his job.

My family needs me, he said.

Mr. Tzirin gets up at 5:30 every morning and goes out looking for construction work or odd jobs as a day laborer but usually returns home empty-handed. Theres nothing, he said.

He is three months behind on his rent. He contemplates returning to Guatemala for the first time in a decade, but what can he do there?

Its a hard experience, Mr. Tzirin said. People are getting desperate.

Many migrant workers are now contending with two emergencies at once a loss of income combined with the menace of the virus itself.

Mr. Tudor, the Romanian immigrant living in Britain, left his home region of Transylvania when he was in his early 20s. Abandoning a perilous life as a coal miner, he landed first in Spain, where he worked in security. As the global financial crisis plunged the country into a veritable depression in 2009, he moved to Britain, settling in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town of 76,000 people, about 150 miles west of London.

He took care of older people through stints arranged by staffing companies. His most recent job was at a for-profit nursing home called The Heathers. He was making 848 pounds (about $1,070) a week. His wife was cleaning rooms at a hotel, bringing home 1,200 ($1,536) a month.

As the coronavirus emerged, his wife saw her hours reduced. Hospitals began shifting older patients stricken with the virus to nursing homes.

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They Crossed Oceans to Lift Their Families Out of Poverty. Now, They Need Help. - The New York Times

New Delhi: I laid the bricks; built the buildings; floor by floor;floor by floor made Hindustan.Now, I and my son often keep staring at the sky.Brother o brother; labourer bhaiya; we were made peasants.But O Ram, I and my son now sleep in hunger.

These lines are a loose English translation of a few verses plucked from a song Bhaiya O Bhaiya set in a Purbanchali dialect.

Though recorded in 2018 for the award-winning short film Bhor, the song has been released officially by the films director just recently. This was because the score sung on several virtual music sessions during the national lockdown by its singer Kalpana Patowary was widely shared on social media, including in a tweet by former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi.

Speaking to The Wire from Guwahati, Kalpana said the song received considerable attention from listeners, primarily in the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar belt, only now because it is a song of the times.

We saw such heart-rending images (during the migrant crisis due to the coronavirus-induced national lockdown), like that little boy sleeping over a suitcase and being dragged by his mother. So many people died on the way in an inhuman manner. The hardship that these people face in their daily lives is not new, but the coronavirus crisis forced many of us to confront it and it shocked a lot of people. I think the song had something that people could relate to while watching what was unfolding on our streets, she said in a telephonic interview.

Aside from being a popular folk artist and a celebrated Bhojpuri singer, Kalpana is also a BJP member she joined the party in July 2018 in Patna in the presence of then-party national president Amit Shah and Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi. During the conversation, the singer, though, expressed her disappointment about her senior colleague in the Bhojpuri film industry and fellow party member Manoj Tiwari for not speaking up for the migrant population in their time of need.

I respect him but still want to point out that I was a bit upset with him, because after all, he was put in an important position by the party mainly keeping in mind his connect with the large Bihari/Purbanchali migrant community of Delhi, she said.

As to why she was seen reaching out to several migrant workers stuck in various states, including those from her home state Assam, Kalpana said, I felt that the section of people walking hundreds of miles to reach their homes were the ones who had made me. I am today a popular Bhojpuri singer only because people like them celebrated my songs.

Kalpana is also of the opinion that the long-incarcerated peasant leader and anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) activist from her home state Assam Akhil Gogoi should be freed from jail. Akhils thinking and ideology may be or may not be different from mine, different from my party, but finally we all represent Assam and will have to realise that two brothers from a family may have different beliefs and thinking and may often fight over it but finally, they are brothers. Like I am Assamese, he is too. I dont believe in crushing thoughts opposed to mine, she stated.

Edited excerpts from the interview follow.

Who wrote the song Bhaiya O Bhaiya? When did you sing it?

The song was originally part of Bhor, directed by Kamakhya Narayan Singh, who is also from Assam like I am. It was collected by Vijay Singh whom I have not met and was put to music by Bapi Tutul. Bapi Tutul is a popular name in Bollywood circles for background music; he has worked in several Ram Gopal Varma films too. The song was used as a background score in Bhor not in the film, but when the casting titles at the end was rolling. The film was about casteism in the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar belt, set amidst the Musahar community.

But when I sang the song, I felt a special connection. As an artiste who has grown up listening to Bhupen Hazarika and also as a musician who has researched deeply the songs of Bhikhari Thakur, I felt the song was special. I didnt get any financial remuneration but I still sang it because I felt the song itself was a form of remuneration and will be one of my memorable songs. The film went to various festivals but the song was never promoted. I began to increasingly feel that I myself must take the song forward and sing it during my stage shows, which I did.

Kalpana Patowary. Photo: Facebook/kalpana.patowary1

The song has become considerably popular only now.

Yes. Thats because listeners could connect with the song better now. The country saw the massive exodus of the migrants from urban areas back to their villages because of the national lockdown, and it grew worse by the day. We saw such heart-rending images, like that little boy sleeping over a suitcase and being dragged by his mother. So many people died on the way in an inhuman manner. The hardship that these people face in their daily lives is not new, but the coronavirus crisis forced many of us to confront it and it shocked a lot of people. I think the song had something that people could relate to while watching what was unfolding on our streets.

From the time the lockdown was announced and the migrant community began to get restless to go back home, I opened any virtual singing session with this song realising that it was a song of the times. (She also sang it on sessions organised to mark the International Labour Day on May 1) After about a month, the director of the film also felt its [growing popularity] and released the song officially.

Migrants stand in a queue at Central Railway Station to board a Shramik Special train during ongoing COVID-19 lockdown. Photo: PTI

You were quite proactive during that time, helping migrant labourers from Assam stuck in various states.

Yes, aside from humanity pushing me to do it, I had two other reasons for it. In 2019, I had lost my sister in Bengaluru. (She reportedly died an unnatural death in an alleged domestic violence case) We had to fight for the custody of her seven-year-old daughter. During that fight, I saw the ugly belly of the system. That fight is still on. The child didnt want to go with her father, said as much to the child rights commission but was still sent with my brother-in-law only because he was the biological father and we as such had no right over her, though she wanted to be with us. She was screaming when she was dragged away from us. The whole incident made me realise that she, even if a girl child, had asserted her right, somewhere the system failed to hear her.

So when the whole migrant crisis unfolded, I was in that disturbed state of mind. When I saw little children in such pathetic conditions on the streets due to the lockdown, some question arose within me: Why are the state and the national child rights protection commissions silent on it? Why are they not coming forward to help such children? In a crisis situation, such bodies needed to show their worth. After all, they are paid for it.

Importantly, I felt that the section of people walking hundreds of miles to reach their homes were the ones who had made me. I am today a popular Bhojpuri singer only because people like them celebrated my songs. I belong to them. I am not a rich persons musician. I have also sung a lot of songs based on migration, songs that revolved around the term Pardesi. I realised only now how migration has been a part of their cultural being too and therefore so many songs have that Pardesi angle. I strongly felt my popularity would be of no use if I dont stand for the people who have made me popular. I felt I will have to at least speak up for them.

I also felt my senior colleague in Bhojpuri films and fellow party member Manoj Tiwariji, who was in Delhi at that time, could have done more. After all, he was in a powerful position then in the National Capital Region. I respect him but still want to point out that I was a bit upset with him, because after all, he was put in an important position by the party mainly keeping in mind his connect with the large Bihari/Purbanchali migrant community of Delhi.

Poor people dont want much. In response to the recent illegal coal mining issue in the Dehing Patkai rainforests in Assam and the continuing Baghjan fire tragedy in the state, I have responded in a similar manner. I have said that when the state can take so much from their areas, why cant they (the locals) be provided basic things, like free education, a house, a means of livelihood? That is not much to ask in return for what the state is getting from their region. My response to the migrant issue was along the same lines.

Wont it be seen as speaking against your party?

Why should it be? I am not speaking against the party, only talking about our responsibilities, my responsibilities too. Politics doesnt mean only criticising the opposition members. We need to do a bit of soul searching too. Finally, the party will also see its advantage; I am speaking up for such people as a party member and it will help.

I must also point out here that though the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJD) is our opponent in Bihar, the song you had referred to was shared by the former chief minister of Bihar Rabri Devi on Twitter because it signified something. It must be said here that it was only during the Lalu Prasad Yadav regime that the rachnawali of Bhikari Thakur, who belonged to a lower-caste community, could finally be published through the Rashtra Bhasha Parishad.

Lalu Prasad Yadav with Kalpana Patowary. Photo: Facebook/kalpana.patowary1

Talking about the migrant issue during the pandemic, many in Assam also realised that the state traditionally a region that attracted migrants has also become a migrant producing region.

Yes. I have seen this very closely in UP and Bihar but it needed the pandemic to make me realise that it is an ugly reality of Assam also. People like you and me had gone out of Assam not because we didnt get two square meals a day but for better opportunities in the fields that we have chosen. But this lot of migrants from the state had to leave their home for livelihood reasons.

During the recent crisis, so many young labourers from our indigenous communities had contacted me from various states seeking help for food supply or to return home. It is worth pondering. We will have to try and trace the reasons behind it.

I am not an expert on this issue but I want to give an example. There is a popular Facebook page from Bihar called Muzzafarpur Live. Muzzafarpur, many would know, is famous for its litchis. During one such live sessions on that page, I had asked the local people about the state of litchi-based factories due to the pandemic. Most people said they dont have too many of those there anyway. So what I understood was that there have been no steps taken to create better employment opportunities in Muzzafarpur around a thing that the place is otherwise famous for. So will it not then trigger migration?

In Assam too, the solution to address migration must be through tapping such resources, say the bamboo that is so abundantly grown.

Why are you calling this particular song a protest song? Are you looking at singing more such songs in that genre?

It is a protest song because in the suffering of the mazdoor also lies his protest against the injustice done to him.

In Assam, we have had a tradition of protest songs. But what happened during the time of say, Bhupen Hazarika, is not there anymore. Kamal Kataki, who used to be with Hazarika, has written a few such songs for me to sing. My father also had composed one song which I had sung. In the future, I also want to sing in other languages that we have in Assam. I strongly feel that such songs have not been given enough space on the mainstream Assamese stage and I want to change that.

Aside from the need to sing protest songs in Assam, I feel there is also a need for such songs in the UP-Bihar belt. I would like to work in that regard too.

Finally, many prominent people including artistes in Assam have requested the state government to release peasant leader Akhil Gogoi from jail. Do you want to say anything about it?

Yes. Akhils thinking and ideology may be or may not be different from mine, different from my party, but finally we all represent Assam and will have to realise that two brothers from a family may have different beliefs and thinking and may often fight over it but finally, they are brothers. Like I am Assamese, he is too. I dont believe in crushing thoughts opposed to mine. We dont have such a political culture in Assam.

KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi in New Delhi. Photo: Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty/Files

But like in the rest of India, it is slowly seeping in the state too. I will give you an example of a better political culture. Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not support Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhis policies but would oppose them beautifully, say, through a poem. He would attack the policies of the government but never the personality of leaders. In fact, it said a lot about his personality also. I think keeping this in mind is very important. The beauty of Indian democracy lies in unity in diversity of different ideologies just as in our incredibly diverse Indian culture.

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I Dont Believe in Crushing Thoughts Opposed to Mine: Folk Singer, BJP Leader Kalpana Patowary - The Wire

The districts with COVID-19 positive cases has now decreased to 71 from 77, with 48 deaths. According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), age group of 91 per cent COVID-19 cases ranged from 11 to 50; 86 per cent cases are men (Daily Media Briefing, 27 July).

Out of 7 Provinces, 5 Provinces (Provinces 1, 2, 5, Karnali and Sudurpaschim) are having transmission as clusters of cases and the remaining two Provinces (Bagmati and Gandaki) are classified as having sporadic transmission of COVID-19 (WHO Nepal, Situation Update #14, 22 July 2020).

Most of the lockdown restrictions have been lifted on 22 July 2020 with few exceptions; places or institutions with potential for high intensity transmission (schools, colleges, seminars, trainings, workshops, cinema hall, party palace, dance bar, swimming pool, religious places, etc.) will remain closed till next directive; long route buses, domestic and international airport will resume from 17 August 2020.

Following the increase in COVID-19 positive cases in the Eastern Nepal, the non-essential services have been shut in some part of Parsa, Saptari, Sunsari and Morang Districts.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology held a discussion with the stakeholders on procedures to resume educational institutions across the country. The cabinet meeting on 21 July decided to allow the schools to open school administration and start enrolling the students, starting 17 August, 2020.

Airline Operators Association of Nepal (AOAN) has requested the Government of Nepal (GoN) to lift restrictions on domestic fights so that food and landslide victims can be rescued (AOAN Press Statement, 27 July 2020).

The number of public vehicles on the roads of Kathmandu Valley has increased after the GoN lifted the nationwide lockdown, however, most of these vehicles have not been following the health and safety guidelines issued by the MoHP.

According to the World Bank's latest Nepal Development Update, economic growth is estimated to contract sharply to 2.1 per cent in the current fiscal year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite efforts made by the GoN to curb the economic fallout from the crisis.

While the GoN has prioritised the policies and programmes for migrant returnees, a recent study shows that 70 per cent of the respondents are completely unaware about these programmes. A vast majority (80 per cent) still lack finance restricting them from self-employment (The Rapid Assessment of Nepali Migrant Workers Situation in major destination countries during the COVID 19 Pandemic, Nepal Policy Institute (NPI) and Migration Lab (MLab), 625 migrants views largely based on phone surveys, in 8 primary destination countries (GCC countries, Malaysia and India).

Small and medium scale enterprises have greatly suffered. For example, out of surveyed 33 interlocking bricks micro enterprises in 16 districts, 31 were found highly affected following the COVID-19 crisis. The major consequences faced by these enterprises are disruption in production of bricks, cash hold in market, interruption on supply chain, EMI overdue and raw materials damage among others (Field Assessment Report,NCF funded NABIN project implemented by DCA led consortium with Practical Action and Build Up Nepal).

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Covid19: Nepal Response Situation Report No. XVII, as of 27 July, 2020 - Nepal - ReliefWeb

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New Delhi: All BJP leaders in Rajasthan have been working towards dislodging the Ashok Gehlot government in the last few weeks, be it state unit chief Satish Poonia or veteran Gulab Chand Kataria. But the one face thats been missing from action is Rajyavardhan Rathore, who was the blue-eyed boy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi once.

The Jaipur Rural Lok Sabha MP, who was the Minister of Information and Broadcasting (independent charge) in the first term of the Modi government, has been in a political exile since he was dropped from the Union cabinet in May 2019.

Now, he is neither managing party affairs in Rajasthan nor managing MLAs for a royal coup in the Rajputana state, said sources in the BJP.

The high-risk political operation is being managed by Poonia, Kataria, Arun Chaturvedi and Rajendra Rathore in the state, and by Water Resources Minister Gajendra Shekhawat, and party vice-president Om Prakash Mathur at the Centre, said the sources.

Rathore, an Olympic silver-medalist, had been cultivated as the successor to former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje. But now he just shuttles between Delhi and Jaipur, where he works for his constituency.

As far as having a say in organisational matters is concerned, he is neither in the state core group, which usually comprises top unit leaders, nor the larger party organisation despite his dynamism, fluency in both English and Rajasthani, and track record as a minister. He is also not in any central BJP team.

Multiple party leaders ThePrint spoke to said they had no idea why Rathore was dropped in 2019 and fell out of favour.

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His reason for isolation is the same as when he was dropped from the cabinet. The Prime Ministers Office keeps track of every ministers conduct. Some were dropped in 2019 on performance issues and some were dropped because of purely political reasons. Some were dropped on charges of financial irregularity and other allegations. One was dropped because his family member misused influence, said a party leader who didnt wish to be named.

However, an MP who didnt wish to be named said the main reason why Rathore is missing from political action is that he is not in the good books of the top two decision-makers, referring to PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

ThePrint reached Rathore via text messages for a comment but there was no response until the time of publishing this report.

Also read:Heres what the anti-defection law challenged by Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan HC says

Rajyavardhan Rathore was dropped from the Union cabinet last year despite winning his seat with a handsome margin. It was thought at the time that the party president may give him the charge of the state unit after the death of Madan Lal Saini, then BJP state president, in June 2019.

This was based on the presumption that the PM had shown a tilt towards Rathore during his term as the I&B minister.

In the governments first tenure, three ministers Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Smriti Irani held the I&B charge, but were removed later. Rathore, who was the minister of state under all three, was given the department after Iranis high-profile exit. He was the only minister who kept the portfolio and was retained.

Earlier, he also received the additional charge of the Ministry of Sports ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. It was considered one of the best decisions of Modi to appoint a sportsman, especially in view of Indias poor performance in the Rio Olympics 2016.

However, when the government was re-elected, Rathore suddenly found himself out of the cabinet.

After his ouster from the Centre, Satish Poonia, a lightweight general secretary in the state unit, was appointed as BJP Rajasthan chief in September 2019.

A senior Rajasthan leader said Vasundhara Raje had halted Gajendra Singh Shekhawats appointment as BJP state president in 2018 on the grounds that the Jats will be angry as the latter is from the Rajput community. BJP later suffered defeat in some Jat-dominated seats in the state assembly polls in December 2018.

So, after Madan Lal Sainis death in June 2019, the Centre tried to balance caste equation by appointing a Jat as state president because Gajendra Shekhawat is representing the Rajput community and Arjun Ram Meghwal the Scheduled Castes in cabinet, and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla influential Marwari communities, said the leader who didnt wish to be named. Poonia is a Jat.

However, the first leader quoted above said Rathores decline is connected to the same reason because of which the PM dropped him. The PM keeps a check on every ministers conduct. If he finds any reason against him, he doesnt drop him immediately but waits for a reshuffle. He doesnt want unnecessary media headlines, said the leader.

The PM sent a message by dropping him, it is his way of working. But it is not necessary that he will be in permanent exile. He will be given an ear based on the political needs of the hour, added the leader.

Also read:Congress could call assembly session next week to force rebels MLAs return to Jaipur

Sources said Rajyavardhan Rathore has mainly been active in his constituency since his departure from the central government. He was involved in distributing food during the migrant crisis, and masks and sanitisers during the Covid-19 pandemic. He also held meetings with district collectors and other officials when locusts attacked Rajasthan last month.

But he is not involved in party strategy meetings in the state so his work is centred on his constituency. Despite being a good speaker, he avoids TV debate too, said the senior state leader quoted above.

Earlier this week, he addressed a press conference in Jaipur on his work as MP in the implementation of the Atmatnirbhar Bharat package and a month-long organisational drive on the Centres anniversary celebrations.

Nihal Chand, his colleague in Lok Sabha and ex-minister of state in the Modi cabinet, said Rathore is largely involved in his constituency.

He has done remarkable work during this pandemic and it was appreciated. He toured every assembly segment in his constituency and was available for assistance, said Chand.

The MP quoted above said, Another factor in his lesser involvement is his introverted nature and reservation in talking to MLAs. He doesnt interact with party men frequently. He is not social like other leaders so MLAs also keep distance with him.

When the rebellion in Rajasthan Congress broke out earlier this month, Rathore tweeted that the truth shall win in the opposition regime. He tagged Congress MLA Sachin Pilot, whos leading the rebel camp.

However, another one of his tweets from this month, posted as a wish for the recovery of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan from Covid, could also be seen as a cryptic message on his own political career.

Main palat kar aaunga, shakhon par khushboo lekar, abhi patjhad ki jad me hoon, mausam zara badalne do (I will return with fragrances, stuck as Im right now in autumn But let the seasons change).

Also read:CP Joshi Rajasthan speaker, Gandhi-loyalist & massive failure as in-charge of 10 states

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Why Rajyavardhan Rathore is missing from Rajasthan BJPs fight to dislodge Gehlot govt - ThePrint

By: New York Times | London | Published: July 28, 2020 1:43:28 pm Monwara Begum, center, with her children at her house near Dhaka, Bangladesh. As the pandemic destroys paychecks, migrant workers like Begums husband, Mahammed Heron, are sending less money home, threatening an increase in poverty from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to Eastern Europe and Latin America. (Salahuddin Ahmed/The New York Times)

Written by Peter S. Goodman

For more than a decade, Flavius Tudor has shared the money he has made in England with his mother in Romania, regularly sending home cash that enabled her to buy medicine.

Last month, the flow reversed. His 82-year-old mother sent him money so he could pay his bills.

Suffering a high fever and a persistent cough amid the coronavirus pandemic, Tudor, 52, could no longer enter the nursing home where he worked as a caregiver. So his mother reached into her pension, earned from a lifetime as a librarian in one of Europes poorest countries, and sent cash to her son in one of the wealthiest lands on earth.

Its very tough times, he said. Im lost.

Around the globe, the pandemic has jeopardized a vital artery of finance supporting hundreds of millions of families remittances sent home from wealthy countries by migrant workers. As the coronavirus has sent economies into lockdown, sowing joblessness, people accustomed to taking care of relatives at home have lost their paychecks, forcing some to depend on those who have depended on them.

Last year, migrant workers sent home a record $554 billion, more than three times the amount of development aid dispensed by wealthy countries, according to the World Bank. But those remittances are likely to plunge by one-fifth this year, representing the most severe contraction in history.

The drop amounts to a catastrophe, heightening the near-certainty that the pandemic will produce the first global increase in poverty since the Asian financial crisis of 1998. Some 40 million to 60 million people are expected this year to fall into extreme poverty, which the World Bank defines as living on $1.90 a day or less.

Diminishing remittances are both an outgrowth of the crisis gripping the world and a portent of more trouble ahead. Developing countries account for 60% of the world economy on the basis of purchasing power, according to the International Monetary Fund. Less spending in poorer nations spells less economic growth for the world.

Like the pandemic that has delivered it, the slide in remittances is global. Europe and Central Asia are expected to suffer a fall of nearly 28% in the wages sent home from other countries, while sub-Saharan Africa sees a drop of 23%. South Asia appears set for a 22% decline, while the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean could absorb a reduction of more than 19%.

Overall, the pandemic has damaged the earning power of 164 million migrant workers who support at least 800 million relatives in less affluent countries, according to an estimate from the United Nations Network on Migration.

We are talking about a staggering number of people who are benefiting from these remittances, said Dilip Ratha, lead economist on migration and remittances at the World Bank in Washington.

Venturing overseas for work is laced with danger, exposing migrant workers to dishonest recruitment agents, exploitative employers, and the physical perils of manual labor. It is also a singularly effective means of upward mobility.

Households receiving remittances eat better, and are more likely to continue their childrens education rather than pressing them into the workforce. Babies born into homes receiving remittances tend to be higher in birth weight.

Three years ago, Mahammed Heron left his village outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, for work in the energy-rich nation of Qatar, tracing a route pursued by tens of millions of South Asian migrants.

He borrowed 400,000 Bangladeshi taka (about $4,700) from relatives and engaged a local recruitment agent that bought him a plane ticket, secured a work visa and promised him a job. This was a monumental amount of money in Bangladesh, more than twice the national income per capita (about $1,855). His wife, Monowara Begum, was terrified. Her first husband Herons older brother had been killed by a drunken driver more than a decade earlier in Saudi Arabia, where he had been working as a hospital janitor.

But if the prospect of her husband venturing to the Persian Gulf was frightening, staying put seemed riskier still.

Her family lived in a shack made of corrugated aluminum that was vulnerable to the torrential rains of the monsoon. They had no running water. Heron earned perhaps 300 taka (about $3.50) per day working in the surrounding rice paddies. They could rarely afford meat or fish, subsisting on rice and potatoes. Her oldest son had a heart condition that required medicine.

The only way out of poverty was to invest in her childrens education, but tuition payments reached 6,000 taka (more than $70) per year.

Our financial situation was never good, Begum explained in an interview via a video link, as birds chirped loudly in the village. She reluctantly agreed to the plan.

When Heron landed in Doha in September 2018, the furnace-like heat was not the only shock: The recruitment agency had failed to line up a job. I was cheated, he said in an interview by video.

He looked frantically for work, eventually securing a position at a staffing agency that sent him on a variety of assignments cleaning offices, landscaping and digging into the sandy earth to lay fiber optics cable.

Heron was paid a monthly salary of 900 Qatari rial (about $250) and assigned a bunk inside a dormitory room he shared with 15 other men, all Bangladeshis.

Every two or three months, he sent home about 30,000 taka (about $350), but it all went toward his debt still only one-fourth repaid.

Then, in May, with the coronavirus shutting down much of life in Doha, the agency stopped paying the workers, Heron said. He suffered an asthma flare-up that required hospitalization, absorbing all his cash. He stopped sending money home.

For Bangladesh overall, remittances received from other countries plunged by 23% in April compared with a year earlier, and were down by 13% in May, according to the nations central bank, though June saw an increase.

Schools remain shut in Bangladesh, but whenever they open, Begum sees no way to afford sending her 16-year-old son, Hasan.

She has been urging Hasan to find work perhaps in construction, maybe at an auto repair shop. He has been resisting, preferring to stay at home and read textbooks.

I want to continue my studies, he said. He imagines a life as a software engineer. His face lights up as he describes this a slender teenager, standing shirtless in front of his shack as roosters crow, envisioning himself in a shiny office, leaning over a computer.

Every few days, he and his mother use a smartphone app and a prepaid internet card to talk to Heron, stranded in the dormitory in Qatar. He is too ill to work, he said, but lacks money to fly home. After another year, the staffing company is contractually obligated to pay for his return flight. He bides his time, hoping his health improves, hoping his pay resumes, hoping his own children escape his fate.

I dream that my sons will do something in their life, he said.

Many migrant workers are now contending with two emergencies at once a loss of income combined with the menace of the virus itself.

Tudor, the Romanian immigrant living in Britain, left his home region of Transylvania when he was in his early 20s. Abandoning a perilous life as a coal miner, he landed first in Spain, where he worked in security. As the global financial crisis plunged the country into a veritable depression in 2009, he moved to Britain, settling in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town of 76,000 people, about 150 miles west of London.

He took care of older people through stints arranged by staffing companies. His most recent job was at a for-profit nursing home called The Heathers. He was making 848 pounds (about $1,070) a week. His wife was cleaning rooms at a hotel, bringing home 1,200 pounds ($1,536) a month.

As the coronavirus emerged, his wife saw her hours reduced. Hospitals began shifting older patients stricken with the virus to nursing homes.

Tudor soon came down with a fever and a cough, forcing him to stop going to work. He twice tested negative for the coronavirus, but has been unable to secure another job.

In recent years, Britain has sharply reduced government support programs for the jobless and those struggling to pay their bills, folding them into a lump sum scheme known as universal credit.

Tudor has traded his paycheck for a 1,000-pound ($1,280) monthly universal credit payment, cutting his income roughly in half. His eyeglasses have broken, but he cant afford to replace them. When the rent came due last month, he paid it only with the help of his mother, back in Romania.

The world doesnt know where its going, he said. No society can handle this situation.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

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They crossed oceans to lift their families out of poverty. Now, they need help - The Indian Express

Since 2017, more than 1 million Central Americans have made their way to the U.S. southwestern border, triggering a disjointed but brutal crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump. Although the combination of tighter border controls and the coronavirus has reduced these flows, they will resume when the COVID-19 lockdowns lift.

Only this time, Mexicans are likely to join the exodus. The resulting tensions could destabilize one of the worlds most tightly woven bilateral relationships, jeopardizing cooperation on everything from counternarcotics to water rights and the prosperity that closer ties have underpinned on both sides of the border.

Mexican migration to the U.S. peaked at the turn of the last century. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans moved north every year, many evading border sentries along the way. They fanned out across the nation, drawn to enclaves in California, Texas, Illinois and Arizona, but also to newer locations: Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Idaho. And many switched from seasonal work in the fields to more permanent year-round jobs in child care, landscaping, hotels and car services.

By the mid-2000s, the exodus slowed. For the past 15 years, more Mexicans have left the U.S. than come each year. This shift reflects economic progress at home, not least an end to the financial booms and busts of the 1980s and 1990s. Beefed-up enforcement at the U.S. border has also discouraged circular migration, with workers now rarely returning home for a few months between planting seasons.

Better schooling also helped. With the number of years of education nearly doubling since 1990, the average Mexican 16-year-old is in class, not the workforce. So have changing demographics: Starting in the 1980s Mexican families have had fewer kids, now averaging just over two per household. Compared with the 1990s, fewer Mexicans are turning 18 every year and searching for work either at home or in the U.S.

But in place of Mexicans came a swelling wave of Central Americans, driven by poverty, violence and devastating droughts due to climate change. The majority have been women and children, pulled, too, by the presence of family, friends and economic ties in the U.S.

The Trump administration has made aggressive efforts to stop them. It changed asylum rules, attempting to disqualify those fleeing gang or domestic violence, to limit the right to apply to those arriving at official border crossings, and to otherwise make it more difficult to seek protection. Those families who did enter the U.S. system were often subjected to inhumane living conditions, with children separated from parents and placed in detention pens resembling cages.

The U.S. leaned hard on Central American governments to stop these would-be migrants from leaving in the first place. Under pressure, Mexico also acquiesced to holding tens of thousands of Central Americans for months or more as they waited to have their claims heard in U.S. immigration courts.

The number of Central American migrants did decline. In the start of 2020, flows fell almost by half compared with the year before. With COVID-19 restrictions, the movement nearly ceased in April and May. Yet the reasons pushing families to leave havent changed. Instead, the pandemic is making them all the worse. And not just in Central America, but also in Mexico.

The biggest factor driving a resurgence of Mexicans north is economic desperation: Mexicos economy is expected to shrink by more than 10% this year. Even before the pandemic, both public and private investment had fallen to historic lows. Since then more than 12 million Mexicans have lost their livelihoods, as the government is doing little to keep companies going or preserve jobs. And in addition to the consequences of President Andres Manuel Lpez Obradors misguided economic policies, his reversal of education reforms has made it less important and likely that students will stay in school. Those who do will be less likely to learn the skills needed in a 21st-century Mexican economy.

Rising violence is also driving hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from their homes and communities. Last year homicides topped 34,000. The first half of 2020 has been even more deadly.

As these factors push Mexicans to leave, economic and familial ties pull them north. Mexicans represent the biggest migrant population in the U.S. (the majority here legally). Even with a soft U.S. economy, these fellow citizens can provide a contact, a first place to stay and a lead on a job for future aspiring migrants.

If the past is any guide, many more Mexicans will head north. Their numbers are already ticking up: Since January, more Mexicans than Central Americans have been apprehended at the border.

The Trump administrations methods to discourage Central Americans wont work with Mexico. Lopez Obrador and his National Guard arent able to stop citizens who have a constitutional right to leave their country. Mexican migrants are less likely to be asylum-seekers (even as many flee incredible violence), so the rule changes wont dissuade their journeys. And Mexicans are also more likely to succeed in making it into the U.S.; the nations proximity means that those who have been deported can easily try their luck again.

A migration surge could be a game changer for U.S. politics and policy. On the foreign policy side, it could rupture the bonhomie between Lopez Obrador and Trump, as migration becomes a defining electoral campaign issue. Mexicos president has so far ignored or endured U.S. slights, but a full frontal attack on his citizens would be harder to take given his long-standing (and popular) defense of Mexican migrants.

For the U.S. presidential race, a surge in Mexican migration would mobilize both sides. It would provide anti-immigrant fodder that Trump could use to feed his base. But his tirades could also motivate more of the tens of millions of Mexican Americans, weary of the ugliness directed at them by association, to turn out to vote. With Latinos representing 13% of the electorate, Democrats could benefit.

The hardest part will come later. Whoever wins in November wont have the policy tools to manage this migration effectively or humanely. Outdated laws and an already strained immigration system provide little recourse, and political polarization makes it all the harder to fix them. Mexican migration could easily become the new administrations first big crisis.

Shannon ONeil is a senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

See the original post here:

OPINION EXCHANGE | Mexico's misery, and a resurgence of illegal immigration, could be any new administration's first crisis. - Minneapolis Star...

OAS General Secretariat and Venezuelan Civil Society Present Proposals to Improve the Situation of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees during the COVID-19 Crisis

The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS), in conjunction with Venezuelan civil society organizations established in the Americas and the Caribbean, today published the document Recommendations to Improve the Situation of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees in the Context of COVID-19. This document is the result of 13 meetings held between the Office of the General Secretariat for the Crisis of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees and the Coalition for Venezuela, made up of 63 civil society organizations that provide assistance to Venezuelans in 23 countries in the region.

The document is available here in Spanish and here in English.

"The situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees represents one of the greatest challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, given that it has increased the difficulty in fully exercising their rights, such as: access to health, education, the right to life, to housing, to food, to work and the safeguarding of livelihoods, the document states in the introduction.

The document acknowledges the effort made by the member States of the Organization, as well as the efforts of organized civil society, considering that the resources assigned by the international community have been insufficient to overcome difficulties and implement suitable care policies that allow the Venezuelan migrant population to integrate in a stable and secure way into the social and economic dynamics of the host countries.

In this sense, the document is published with the aim of helping member States reach common and pertinent solutions that improve the conditions of Venezuelans in their respective host countries through the necessary collaboration with different sectors of society. In line with this purpose, recommendations and proposals are indicated in the following areas:

The document issues 9 recommendations in the area of health, 5 related to education, 9 with livelihoods, 6 in relation to food security, another 6 related to the need for protection and 4 in the area of housing, all focused on improving the situation of Venezuelan migrants and refugees.

On the other hand, the document points out the multiple benefits of the implementation of the proposals for the recipient countries, such as better economic development, the decrease in violence and the strengthening of the health system to respond to the pandemic emergency.

The mission of the OAS General Secretariat Office to address the crisis of Venezuelan migrants and refugees, coordinated by David Smolansky, is to work with OAS member countries to address the situation of more than 5.2 million Venezuelans who have been banished. Since the publication of its regional report in June 2019, the Office has expressed the need to create the basis for a regional consensus that grants Venezuelans refugee status and guarantees them permanent protection.

Coalition for Venezuela is the union of Venezuelan civil society organizations that focuses on the well-being of all Venezuelans and the peoples that receive them as migrants or refugees, without distinction. It is an independent initiative currently made up of 63 organizations present in 23 countries in the region that work in the defense and promotion of human rights, freedoms and democratic values.

Reference: E-080/20

Go here to see the original:

Recommendations to Improve the Situation of Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees within the Context of COVID-19 (June 2020) - Venezuela (Bolivarian...

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Since 2017, more than one million Central Americans have made their way to the U.S. southwestern border, triggering a disjointed but brutal crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump. Although the combination of tighter border controls and the coronavirus has reduced these flows, they will resume when the Covid-19 lockdowns lift.

Only this time, Mexicans are likely to join the exodus. The resulting tensions could destabilize one of the worlds most tightly woven bilateral relationships, jeopardizing cooperation on everything from counternarcotics to water rights and the prosperity that closer ties have underpinned on both sides of the border.

Mexican migration to the U.S. peaked at the turn of the last century. At the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans moved north every year, many evading border sentries along the way. They fanned out across the nation, drawn to enclaves in California, Texas, Illinois, and Arizona, but also to newer locations: Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Idaho. And many switched from seasonal work in the fields to more permanent year-round jobs in childcare, landscaping, hotels and car services.

By the mid-2000s, the exodus slowed. For the past 15 years, more Mexicans have left the U.S. than come each year. This shift reflects economic progress at home, not least an end to the financial booms and busts of the 1980s and 1990s. Beefed-up enforcement at the U.S. border has also discouraged circular migration, with workers now rarely returning home for a few months between planting seasons.

Better schooling also helped. With the number of years of education nearly doubling since 1990, the average Mexican 16-year-old is in class, not the workforce. So have changing demographics: Starting in the 1980s Mexican families have had fewer kids, now averaging just over two per household. Compared with the 1990s, fewer Mexicans are turning 18 every year and searching for work either at home or in the U.S.

But in place of Mexicans came a swelling wave of Central Americans, driven by poverty, violence and devastating droughts due to climate change. The majority have been women and children, pulled, too, by the presence of family, friends and economic ties in the U.S.

The Trump administration has made aggressive efforts to stop them. It changed asylum rules, attempting to disqualify those fleeing gang or domestic violence, to limit the right to apply to those arriving at official border crossings, and to otherwise make it more difficult to seek protection. Those families who did enter the U.S. system were often subjected to inhumane living conditions, with children separated from parents and placed in detention pens resembling cages.

The U.S. leaned hard on Central American governments to stop these would-be migrants from leaving in the first place. Under pressure, Mexico also acquiesced to holding tens of thousands of Central Americans for months or more as they waited to have their claims heard in U.S. immigration courts.

The number of Central American migrants did decline. In the start of 2020, flows fell almost by half compared with the year before. With Covid-19 restrictions, the movement nearly ceased in April and May. Yet the reasons pushing families to leave havent changed. Instead, the pandemic is making them all the worse. And not just in Central America, but also in Mexico.

The biggest factor driving a resurgence of Mexicans north is economic desperation: Mexicos economy is expected to shrink by more than 10% this year. Even before the pandemic, both public and private investment had fallen to historic lows. Since then more than 12 million Mexicans have lost their livelihoods, as the government is doing little to keep companies going or preserve jobs. And in addition to the consequences of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors misguided economic policies, his reversal of education reforms has made it less important and likely that students will stay in school. Those who do will be less likely to learn the skills needed in a 21st-century Mexican economy.

Rising violence is also driving hundreds of thousands of Mexicans from their homes and communities. Last year homicides topped 34,000. The first half of 2020 has been even more deadly.

Story continues

As these factors push Mexicans to leave, economic and familial ties pull them north. Mexicans represent the biggest migrant population in the U.S. (the majority here legally). Even with a soft U.S. economy, these fellow citizens can provide a contact, a first place to stay, and a lead on a job for future aspiring migrants.

If the past is any guide, many more Mexicans will head north. Their numbers are already ticking up: Since January, more Mexicans than Central Americans have been apprehended at the border.

The Trump administrations methods to discourage Central Americans wont work with Mexico. Lopez Obrador and his National Guard arent able to stop citizens who have a constitutional right to leave their country. Mexican migrants are less likely to be asylum seekers (even as many flee incredible violence), so the rule changes wont dissuade their journeys. And Mexicans are also more likely to succeed in making it into the U.S.; the nations proximity means that those who have been deported can easily try their luck again.

A migration surge could be a game changer for U.S. politics and policy. On the foreign policy side, it could rupture the bonhomie between Lopez Obrador and Trump, as migration becomes a defining electoral campaign issue. Mexicos president has so far ignored or endured U.S. slights, but a full frontal attack on his citizens would be harder to take given his long-standing (and popular) defense of Mexican migrants.

For the U.S. presidential race, a surge in Mexican migration would mobilize both sides. It would provide anti-immigrant fodder that Trump could use to feed his base. But his tirades could also motivate more of the tens of millions of Mexican-Americans, weary of the ugliness directed at them by association, to turn out to vote. With Latinos representing 13% of the electorate, Democratscould benefit.

The hardest part will come later. Whoever wins in November wont have the policy tools to manage this migration effectively or humanely. Outdated laws and an already strained immigration system provide little recourse, and political polarization makes it all the harder to fix them. Mexican migration could easily become the new administrations first big crisis.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Shannon O'Neil is a senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Mexican Migration Could Be the First Crisis of 2021 - Yahoo Finance

The House of Representatives of the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina has on Thursday confirmed the appointment of Selmo Cikotic as the new Minister of Security of BiH.

Out of 32 deputies present, 17 were in favor, 12 against, while three abstained. After the repeated voting, which was requested by MP Branislav Borenovic, out of 33 MPs present, there were 18 in favor, 13 against, and two abstentions.

Cikotic was nominated by Council of Ministers Chairman Zoran Tegeltija, saying the appointment was made following a proposal by the SDA party and a review by the relevant agencies, Klix.ba news portal reports.

The newly elected Minister Cikotic, said that the issue of illegal migrants will be the first to be dealt with after taking office.

Cikotic said for Srna news agency that he will probably take over the duty of minister tomorrow and that he will work diligently on resolving the issue of the migrant crisis.

Asked whether he would insist that illegal migrants return to their countries of origin, Cikotic said that he did not already know that and that these were details.

I will talk to the deputy and those who have been informed, Cikotic said.

Read more from the original source:

Newly elected Security Minister reveals Issues to be dealt with after taking Office - Sarajevo Times

[emailprotected] | Rethinking Humanitarianism: This year, The New Humanitarian (founded in 1995 as IRIN News) marks 25 years of journalism from the heart of crises. This story is part of a series that looks back on crisis response over the last quarter century and examines what it may look like in the future.

As we mark 25 years of reporting from the heart of crises, weve hand-picked some of our favourite stories from the archives.

In no particular order, here are stories published by The New Humanitarian and our previous incarnation, IRIN News, that resonated with our editors or you, our readers sometimes both. They have also chronicled the evolution of humanitarianism over the last quarter century, informing our look back on the sector as part of our new series, Rethinking Humanitarianism. We tried to choose only 25 stories, but in the end we cheated a little.

Hover over the circle for a glimpse of our favourite stories from the past 25 years. Click on the image to find out more about the story behind it or scroll below for the full list of our top 25 (or so) pieces.

Welcome to our time machine. Tap and hold the circle for a glimpse of our favourite stories from the past 25 years. Release your finger from the image to find out more about the story behind it or scroll below for the full list of our top 25 (or so) pieces.

Published just this year, this story quickly became our most popular of all time, attracting more than 350,000 readers. It highlights the wild allegations, fear mongering, and suspicions about both billionaires and the World Health Organization that spread in the wake of a global pandemic from a false claim that Bill Gates had a secret plan to insert microchips into patients to a non-profit lobby group that became an unlikely focus for a convergence of conspiracies. The piece showed how misinformation could undermine international efforts to contain the virus and triggered some lively hate mail too!

In this long-form narrative piece, Africa Editor Obi Anyadike takes us inside efforts to de-radicalise members of what at the time was rated the worlds deadliest militant group. One of the first journalists to be granted access to Boko Haram prisoners, Anyadike unpacks the goals and motivations of the group and builds on our years of reporting (stretching back to 2009 and 2011) to track how a local religious sect developed into one of the worlds most protracted insurgencies. His work offers clues to tackling violence in the Sahel which continues spreading today (see our in-depth series The Sahel in flames) and was referenced by The New York Times and shared by Longform, among others.

This horrific account, dating back to some of the worst days of war in Iraq, reveals the gruesomeness of the sectarian violence that ravaged the country from 2006-2009. The first person testimony details a mothers impossible choice: submit to rape by militants or see her husband killed. The Arabic version of the story travelled widely, becoming our third most-read story of all time.

We teamed up with the research outfit Humanitarian Outcomes to map attacks against aid workers globally. In 2000, 41 serious attacks on aid workers were recorded. By 2014, that number had risen to 190. In those 15 years, more than 3,000 workers were killed, injured, or kidnapped. This data visualisation tells the story of each of those attacks. It went on to prompt a petition signed by more than 1,400 aid workers urging the UN secretary-general to prioritise aid worker security.

Want to support another 25 years of reporting from the heart of crises? Become a member of The New Humanitarian.

This short documentary series earned IRIN an honourable mention at the 14th annual Webby awards, hailed as the internets highest honour by The New York Times. From the Nepali woman rescuing girls from the sex trade to the South African Catholic bishop promoting condoms, the videos profile exceptional people involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. IRINs PlusNews website published dedicated news about HIV/AIDS until 2011. For more of its offerings, take a look at this award-winning 2007 piece on a medical trial gone wrong in the search for products to prevent the disease.

This intimate account of the war in Yemen was one of the last articles contributor Almigdad Mojalli wrote before he was killed outside the capital city of Sanaa in January 2016. He had considered fleeing Yemen several times since the beginning of the war in early 2015, but decided to stay and document his countrys downward spiral and its impact on civilians. In this piece, he details his attempts to protect his family from the war and the day that several of his family members were hit in an apparent airstrike. Less than one year later, he died the same way.

Our early coverage of instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire, is special to us for a couple of reasons. This 1996 briefing on the unrest in South Kivu province, one of our earliest pieces of original content, was the first comprehensive analysis on the conflict, which would challenge the stability of the country for years to come. And this 1999 coverage of clashes between pastoralists and agriculturalists in eastern Ituri province sparked an early example of user-generated content: exclusive amateur video from a missionary group showed children with deep machete wounds as well as mass graves and burning villages, drawing much-needed attention to the crisis. Over the years, our coverage of Congo has won awards, prompted mainstream media coverage, sparked a lobbying campaign at the UK Parliament, and contributed to a potential investigation into war crimes.

This series of short films shows the effects even back then in 2008 of a warming Earth. It tells the stories of a village chief in Lesotho who is mourning poor harvests due to declining rainfall and of Senegalese who fear their homes will be swept away by rising seas. Such was reader interest in the subject that this short news story about the 12 countries at highest risk of drought, flooding, storms, rising sea levels, and agricultural uncertainty still remains one of our most-read pieces.

On a reporting trip years ago, Middle East Editor Annie Slemrod met a young boy at a camp in Iraqs western desert, his body and face covered in scars. It was a few months after his home near the city of Fallujah was hit during fighting, killing his mother, brother, and cousin. Two years later, without knowing his name or much else about him, she returned to Iraq to find one boy in a country of 37 million people. Her longread about that search, and what happened to the boy called Othman, tells the story of what displacement, return, and war really mean for Iraqis who have been through so many years of conflict. And it inspired our readers to donate towards his medical costs.

The question has no clear answer under international law. Some experts argue that children cannot be held criminally responsible for acts they committed when they were not yet mature, and after experiencing intimidation or indoctrination. Others say failure to prosecute child soldiers would incentivise commanders to continue recruiting them. The debate has stood the test of time: This analysis exploring arguments on both sides continues to be among our most-read pieces, year after year.

Given the subject matter, our stories can often be heavy reading. But there are exceptions. Our piece exploring the challenges of dating among aid workers was a hit. Years later, its title became the name of a Facebook support group for aid workers 24,000 people strong. For more racy content, check out this 2011 story about HIV/AIDS, which led with: Vaginal sex, thigh sex, even armpit sex people have sex in lots of ways And for a look at the benefits of horny expatriate aid workers, check out this 2015 piece on the rise in use of the Grindr dating app in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Sticking with the lighter side of humanitarianism, our curation of memes circling the internet about the so-called nexus between humanitarian aid, development, and peacebuilding provoked a lot of reader reaction (for a more serious examination of this key if controversial policy priority, see our series on the topic).

Our Forgotten Conflicts series gathered reporting from the heart of several hidden insurgencies and collated the worlds conflicts onto a single map, which attracted the attention of National Geographic, Wired magazine, and the UKs Daily Mail. Among our favourite entries in the series are this award-winning, interactive multimedia feature from Sudans Blue Nile State described as visually stunning and extraordinarily timely and this moving audio slideshow from a town destroyed by the civil war in South Sudan. We were the first news organisation to embed with Cameroons anglophone secessionists (footage from the trip was provided to TV5 and the BBC); took an inside look at the struggling peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic; and uncovered details of a hidden war in Congo-Brazzaville thanks to satellite imagery which Congolese lawyers say they plan to use as evidence in a genocide case to be filed at the International Criminal Court.

Read more 25 Crises that Shaped History

In this investigation, we revealed that the man at the heart of a sexual exploitation scandal at aid agency Oxfam in Haiti was dismissed for similar misconduct by another British NGO seven years earlier. We also revealed that the Swedish government was made aware of his track record even before he got to Haiti, but that it funded programmes he was running (at the time in Chad) anyway. Following our story, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency suspended its humanitarian support for Oxfam until it could investigate the charity's systems and procedures (it has since resumed). The story made headlines around the world and sparked a conversation within the aid sector about how NGOs can better share information to prevent sexual predators from being re-hired while re-organising to prevent abuse.

Worldwide, more than one billion people live in slums often the poorest of the poor, denied government services and the most vulnerable to natural disasters. This documentary tells the story of people who refused to be defined by their environment in one of Africas largest slums, Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya. The film inspired British celebrities to spend three nights in the slum, living in tiny shacks with local residents, working menial jobs, and sharing their stories as part of a fundraiser for Comic Relief UK, which aired on the BBC as Famous, Rich and in the Slums. In the same vein, this short feature on Africas biggest metropolis, Lagos, the mega-city of slums, remains among our top 10 most-read stories, nearly 15 years on.

This special package on The Four Famines of 2017 explored the dangerous mix of conflict, weak governance, poor infrastructure, and failing markets at the heart of one of the worlds largest food crises. It followed this briefing on drought in Africa, among our most-read pieces, summing up El Nios impact on east and southern Africa: consecutive seasons of drought that scorched harvests, ruined livelihoods, increased the malnutrition rates of rural children, and drove up food prices. They are among several stories we published on the topic that year from Kenya to Ethiopia as drought ravaged many parts of Africa. The stories were reminiscent of our earlier reporting in 2011, during the driest period in the Horn of Africa in 60 years, when famine killed more than 250,000 people in Somalia. Its a narrative that seems to keep repeating itself.

This article traces the origins of ready-to-eat therapeutic nutritional food a breakthrough in treating starving and malnourished children to a blender and a jar of Nutella in Malawi. Three years after our article was published, French pediatric nutritionist Andr Briend became a humanitarian celebrity of sorts, featured in a New York Times article, The Peanut Solution, as the creator of the nutritional supplement Plumpy'Nut and credited with significantly improving survival rates of dangerously hungry children.

Our coverage of the Rohingya people has set the agenda since we began flagging systematic discrimination against the ethnic and religious minority in Myanmar as far back as 2008. Its hard to pick just one story over the years, but this award-winning recounting of a brutal 2016 attack on a Rohingya village, including testimony from a woman allegedly raped by seven soldiers a claim dismissed as made-up by a government official we interviewed foreshadowed what would follow months later in the mass exodus that shocked the world. You also read with interest our feature on uncounted male rape survivors; these timelapse GIFs made from satellite images; this first-person account of why the Rohingya risk their lives at sea; and these portraits of Rohingya entrepreneurs. This reportage on how the Rohingya have been systematically stripped of citizenship, belonging, and their very identity gets to the heart of the crisis. Our coverage informed a call for the UN Human Rights Council to launch an inquiry into abuses against the Rohingya, prompted new areas of focus in humanitarian responses, and inspired donations from readers.

Stories of asylum seekers and migrants getting on rickety boats have become commonplace since Syrian refugees began fleeing to Europe at scale in 2015. But this early example of the trend was received with interest by our audience, and our 2012 in-depth package of migration stories, Crossing into the unknown, continued to forecast migration to Europe early on. Other favourites on the topic of refugees and migrants include TNH Director Heba Alys 2013 account of her overnight stay at Jordans largest refugee camp; Africa Editor Obi Anyadikes hike up Mount Selouane in 2015 as part of this feature on Moroccos forgotten frontline of the migrant crisis; and this award-winning raw, atmospheric film on the reality for unaccompanied minors on the border between Hungary and Serbia.

When we broke the news that senior human rights official Anders Kompass was resigning from the UN over a peacekeeper sexual abuse scandal in Central African Republic, the story reverberated around the world. In one of our most-read stories of all time, the Swedish diplomat who, when he reported the abuse, was condemned for his misconduct, suspended from his job, and marched out of his office opened up about the lack of accountability entrenched in the United Nations. In our follow-up on-the-ground reporting with the survivors of the abuse, we found stark gaps in victim support and justice, and a TNH investigation revealed a series of blunders in the UNs own internal investigation of the scandal.

Readers were moved by the story of Sally al-Sabahi, a Yemeni girl who was forcibly married at the age of 10 to an elderly man in exchange for a $1,000 dowry. After being drugged and beaten by her husband, Sally escaped. But without the money to pay back the dowry, she couldnt divorce him. Our article prompted offers of financial help from readers as far as California, allowing Sally to pay back the dowry and get her divorce. Covering violence against women has always been an important part of our work, from this moving audio slideshow, Still Standing, following the journey of one Kenyan rape survivor in her quest for justice, to the award-winning film Our Bodies; Their Battleground, one of IRINs first feature-length documentaries, about sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. Our collection of stories about female genital mutilation remains one of our most-visted pages. This profile of Milly Wonder, a Kenyan self-defence trainer for girls, is one of our favourite short videos ever, and is bound to brighten up your day.

With many of todays conflicts taking place in Muslim-majority countries or involving Muslim combatants, aid agencies are arguably more than ever before working in areas governed by Islamic norms. This four-part series, nominated for an AidEx Journalism Award, explores in depth the intersection between Islamic law, jihadism, and humanitarian norms.

Our annual listing is always popular with readers and helps shape the agenda for the year ahead. It began in 2018 with a spotlight on secessionists in Cameroon and sub-Saharan migrants in Libya. Our 2019 look-ahead focused on climate displacement and infectious diseases. This years list highlights why increased militancy in the Sahel and macro-economic turbulence are drivers of humanitarian need.

We couldnt resist revisiting this 2012 story tracking efforts to fight Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony with beer, spy planes, and YouTube. And for more that is a little offbeat, check out this news report detailing the sordid kidnapping of Chadian orphans by French aid workers in 2007; and the story of Order #81707503 tracking a single delivery of cooking oil from a decision at a US Agency for International Development office to the hands of a displaced woman in Chad. Weve looked at language too, from this 2008 guide to HIV/AIDS slang (getting a red card means your life is over) to this 2018 introduction to disaster aid acronyms, from GDACS to MIRA.

Our journalism has always been free and independent and we need your help to keep it so.

As we mark our 25th anniversary, we are launching a voluntary membership programme. Become a member of The New Humanitarian to support our journalism and become more involved in our community.

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TNH@25: Our and your favourite stories of all time - The New Humanitarian

In India, the coronavirus pandemic will be remembered for the migrant crisis that the last-minute announcement of the lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi created. Thousands of migrant workers flocked from the big cities to their native villages in Indias vast rural expanse, as the lockdown left them unemployed.

Scenes of helplessness and misery dominated the media space with painful videos going viral, be it the one of a child trying to wake up his dead mother on a railway station or the video of a migrant carrying his children on a bicycle walking barefoot in the soaring temperatures prompting a journalist to gift his shoes to the worker as he broke down.

The virus has also badly hit the Kashmir Valley that is still struggling with an unfolding crisis. However, with cases shooting up every day and the virus turning deadly, fear and panic has once again gripped the populace.

The condition that has brought anxiety among the residents of the Valley is the emergence of bi-lateral pneumonia, killing and affecting people irrespective of their age and comorbidities. So when 64-year-old Afroza Makhdoomi of Srinagars Ilahi Bagh area succumbed to the fatal disease, Kashmirs ongoing pandemic crisis slipped and showed itself through the shroud of silence.

A viral video showed M.s Makhdoomis distraught sons struggling to remove their mothers body from the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), the only help being provided by the hospital being a shabby stretcher. The video was filmed by one of the sons and showed the Makhdoomi brothers wearing full PPE kits and masks as they yell angrily before breaking down over the hospitals apathy.

She was my everything, my support during my struggling days and my backbone, Mr. Rameez Makhdoomi said of her mother, one of the more than 200 victims of COVID-19 in Jammu and Kashmir. While she was fit and suffered from no comorbidity, what further broke our heart was how her dead body was desecrated, she deserved a better stretcher and a better farewell. Everyone does.

Mr. Rameez further said that he was now looking to do something in the remembrance of his mother. She died a martyr and did so much for us. I want to do something for her too, I dont want people to suffer like we did. Therefore, I might set up a group that can help those who find themselves in situations like we did. And have no one to help except God, he said.

The video was shared by hundreds and garnered thousands of views as well as angry and emotional reactions from netizens who termed the hospitals action, or rather inaction, as sheer incompetence and questioned the administrations failure.

In response, the hospital stated: When the patient in question expired, it was conveyed to District Administration and Health authorities by control room SKIMS, Nodal officer as well as Medical Superintendent. The Institute, through the statement, also said that the delay in receiving team from concerned officials created anxiety among patient attendants when SHO Police Station Soura was contacted to receive dead body from SKIMS.

SKIMS has stopped providing ambulance services, coffins and staff for burial, as theyre not part of a protocol, the statement added. While the stretcher saga ended after the woman was buried, there seems to be a serious crisis situation brewing in Kashmir.

The anger over the administration failure has turned people against the frontline workers-doctors. In one week, doctors have been harassed and beaten by attendants at least twice in Srinagar, prompting the COVID-19 warriors who have been toiling hard to save lives despite a faulty infrastructure to call strike which was thankfully called off soon.

However, hours after the doctors and other paramedical staff called-off their strike, the resident doctors on Saturday evening fled from the hospital to save their lives after two of their colleagues and a security guard was assaulted by the attendants at the cardiology ward.

Talking to a local news gathering agency Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Dr. Bilal Ahmad Mir, Senior Resident General Medicine, said that a patient was very ill while a resident doctor who was treating the patient at cardiology ward was beaten by some attendants.

The incident garnered widespread reaction, with some blaming the doctors of the valley saying that they have made a bad reputation for themselves over the years. However, the vast majority of people seem to be on the side of doctors who they say are vital to fight the pandemic. A raging debate on social media has also ensued over the unfortunate incidents with people mostly taking side of the doctors.

As if this crisis was not enough to add to the anxiety of Kashmiris, the shortage of Remdesivir drug used for treating mild or severe cases of COVID-19 is running short in the valley, I dont understand what was the administration doing during the imposition of lockdown. I mean how can drugs that are saving lives run short, said Mr. Rameez Makhdoomi while questioning the government. Although we were able to get it through using our contacts, most people are complaining that they are not able to get it.

While the effectiveness of the drug is not yet established, doctors in valley are prescribing it which is clear by the scores of social media posts requesting for it, Need only one dose of Remdesivir for my cousin who is on ventilator, wrote Shazia Shah on a Facebook group dedicated for COVID-19. Posts like these are replete on other platforms too.

The shortage has led to questions about the administrations role in tackling the virus and whether it is prepared to cater to patients that are only growing with every passing day.

While the barefooted migrant worker on his way home was lucky enough to find a samaritan who gifted him his shoes, it remains to be seen if Kashmiris will find a samaritan to get them out of the crisis that looms large.

now, more than ever to give a voice to the voiceless. The press in Kashmir has operated under tremendous pressures of reporting from a conflict zone but since August 2019 we find ourselves in unchartered territory. The Kashmir Walla is among the oldest independent media outlets in Kashmir and has withstood successive lockdowns as well as attempts to suppress us, fighting back with authoritative ground reports based on facts.

We need your solidarity to keep our journalism going. Your contribution will empower us to keep you informed on stories that matter from Kashmir. Show your solidarity by joining our community. Kashmir thanks you.

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Coronavirus pandemic is giving rise to a messy crisis in Kashmir - The Kashmir Walla

EUROPEAN states are playing dangerous games in the Mediterranean.

These waters are the graveyard of many people from the Middle East and Africa.

These desperately poor people are today the playthings of reactionary Italian politicians and there is many a European Union functionary who will make pious noises about the chauvinist policies, racist language and general boorishness of Lega boss Matteo Salvini.

But todays real-life and death policies of the EU are just as pernicious as those of any of the right-wing demagogues who make political capital out of the migrant and refugee wave that seeks entry to the precarious security and low-paid work of capitalist Europe.

The people who first land on Greek, Maltese or Italian shores are in many cases fleeing war or climate catastrophe on the African continent.

We can easily divine the basic causes of the interminable strife that affects these lands.

It is not only due to the catastrophic effects of the Western wars on Iraq, Libya,Syria and Afghanistan.

Plenty more is conditioned by the bizarre territorial boundaries and regional rivalries which owe many of their origins to the division and redivision of the lands of the Ottoman empire defeated in the first world war.

The resurgence of Turkey as a regional power is one factor in these new conflicts but the basic cause lies in the heritage of colonial rule and the present-day realties of imperialist war, plunder, subversion and sanctions.

And the structural problems of the African economies are more a manifestation of a climate crisis made in the West than ofany home-grown problems.

Refugees and migrant workers aim for the countries of Europe because this is where the fruits of centuries of exploitation are embedded in their more highly developed economies.

But they also head this way because, in many cases, they speak the languages of their former colonial overlords.

Those who avoid a watery grave make their way through one state or another each glad to speed them on their way unless, for example like Angela Merkels Germany, they have a particular labour market shortage to fill.

Those who finish up at Calais are there because they speak English, have relatives here orcan access support networks of various kinds.

The reactionary right the bourgeois Brexiteers who cloaked their racism in the opaque language of sovereignty are more contemptuous of the human rights of refugees than even the hypocritical EU apparatchiks who devised the Fortress Europe migration regime which necessarily entails dead children on the beaches of Greece.

And Boris Johnson and his calamitous collection of ministers are quite happy to support the subsidy which has turned the Libyan coastguard into a protection racket for the racist slave holders who presently compete for power in a land which once provided secure employment and rising living standards but now is a bomb-site.

Recollect it was David Camerons missile-borne alliance with Hillary Clinton that bombed oil-rich Libya into penury.

British taxpayer pounds, along with EU euros, furnish the barbed wire that tops the fence which Turkey maintains as a lucrative service to the racist migration policies that our government shares with the EU.

The resolution of the refugee and migration crisis is impossible without an end to the exploitation of the lands south and east of the Mediterranean.

It requires a transformation of the political climate and the foreign policies of the European states.

A few months ago we had the prospect of a government committed to an ethical foreign policy that might have made Britain a pioneering peacemaker. It seems like another age.

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Pernicious life and death policies in the Mediterranean - Morning Star Online

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Kelly T. Clements meets new arrivals at UNHCRs transit site in the North of Lesvos Island UNHCR/Tamara Simidrijevic

This article is brought to you in association with theEuropean Commission.

Today the Commission is launching an EU-wide public consultation to gather views on new actions that could be taken at EU level to promote the integration and social inclusion of migrants and people with a migrant background. The Commission is also launching a call for applications to set up an expert group composed of persons with a migrant background to participate in the development and implementation of migration, asylum and integration policies. Involving migrants, asylum applicants and refugees is essential to make the policies more effective and better tailored to needs on the ground.

Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, said: When people settle in Europe its important that they enjoy the same rights and obligations as anybody else. Access to healthcare, housing, education and employment allows them to reach their full potential. Integration of migrants is in everyones interest, it promotes strong and harmonious communities and protects against the ills of isolation and segregation. With this consultation and expert group we will ask those most affected by our policies to be involved in policy-making. This is the European Way of Life.

Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said: The coronavirus crisis showed once again that migrants and refugees contribute in a crucial way to our societies. However, across Europe many still face challenges in finding accommodation or accessing employment, education or healthcare. We need to step up our work on integration at EU level. I invite all stakeholders, especially migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, to reply to the consultation to help us design future actions on integration that can improve quality of life and make our societies more cohesive and inclusive.

With both the consultation and the expert group, the Commission seeks to gather input from a broad range of stakeholders including national, regional and local authorities, civil society organisations, social and economic partners, businesses, education and training providers, academia, cultural and sport organisations, migrant organisations and private individuals. The results of the consultation will contribute to the development of the Action Plan on integration and inclusion announced in the Commissions work programme.

The public consultation will be available in all EU official languages until 21 October 2020. The call for applications to become a member of the Commission expert group on the views of migrants will be open until 21 September.

Background

Well-managed migration to Europe contributes to our societies, culture and economy. The integration and social inclusion of people with migrant background is crucial for cultural exchange and community cohesion. It also helps address skills gaps, labour shortages, and to boost economic performance overall. Currently in the EU, too many migrants face challenges in terms of unemployment, lack of educational and training opportunities, and limited social interaction within their broader communities challenges which adequate public policies could turn into opportunities.

The responsibility for integration policies lies primarily with the Member States. However, the EU has established a large variety of measures to incentivise and support national authorities but also local and regional authorities and civil society in their efforts to promote integration. This includes dedicated funding and instruments addressing social and economic cohesion across Member States. In 2016, the Commission launched an Action Plan on the integration of third country nationals, which included fifty actions to promote integration.

The von der Leyen Commission will put forward an Action Plan on integration and inclusion, whose development will be informed by the results of both consultation and the expert group.

See the article here:

Integration of migrants: Commission launches a public consultation and call for an expert group on the views of migrants - The European Sting

ASGI, the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration, prepared a document to help foreign residents navigate the system and return to Italy after the coronavirus lockdown. Francesco Mason is one of a group of lawyers that worked on this paper. Whats written in law is one thing, he explains, but how things are working in practice is another and it could have dramatic consequences for foreign residents in Italy.

"Human rights are, unfortunately, often one of the first victims ofevery crisis," states a document written by ASGI.The paper aims toclarify how foreign residents in Italy canrenew their residency or return to living and working in the countryafter a possible absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Francesco Mason, lawyer and co-author of the paper, explained to InfoMigrants thatthe current crisis risks emphasizing existing inequalities even more.He says theeffects of the lockdown on migrationwill last for months if not years and the practical difficulties of operating without official documents will furthermore hinder integration. "The situation is pretty dramatic," he says.

"Youwould need a whole day studying to quantify all the effects anddifficulties and situations that have been created by the lockdownfor foreign residents in Italy," says Mason in answer to InfoMigrants' question,"How havemigrants and foreign residents in Italy been affected by the lockdownimposed in Italy by the COVID-19 pandemic?".

"Thesimple answer would be that residency permits which expired duringthis period have been extended until August 31 by law."

In theory,all thosewho have a job and a home in Italy and a legal right to be there havea right to return, whether or not their visa has expired in theinterim. However, in practice, things are a little more complicated.

'Immigrationoffices were the only public offices to close during crisis'

For one thing, the onlypublic offices which were closed duringthe lockdown were those dealing with immigration. "That says a lot inmy opinion," Mason says. While this meant thatlegally, everyone was fine, people may have struggled toget their work contract renewed or open a bank account, which they need toshow valid residency. Many people now don't have the necessarydocuments.

Gettingin and out of Italy without a valid permit is very difficult. That's why the ADGIwrote a practical guide which was updated in June. The latest directive (DPCM) issued by the Italiangovernment was July 14. This directive essentially prolongedeverything that was written on June 11, which Mason and hiscolleagues included in their guide.Returningto Italy from abroad

Currently, anyone returning from or wanting to travel to countriesoutside the EU/Schengen area is banned from doing so unless itis for work, an emergency or for health reasons.

However,people who are returning to their own home in Italy are allowed todo so, provided there are flights.

Many countries, however, still have restrictions in place and air travel is limited.

Although Senegal has opened up gradually from July 15, Mali remains in a state ofemergency and has suspended all flights; Cape Verde has alsosuspended flights; Gambia had its frontiers closed and a state ofemergency until July 14; Guinea Bissau has a state of emergency inforce until July 25, commercial flights have not started up yet,although its borders are formerly opened.

Observingquarantine

The restrictions mean that lotsof people who were normally resident in Italy have ended up being blockedin another country unable to return to Italy to their jobs, theirhomes, and most importantly to renew any residency permits which mayhave expired.

Eventhough expired documents were extended by law until August 31,foreign residents could face problems if they end up being unable toreturn to Italy within six months or a period determined by their residence permitthat in many cases is six months. After this period, thepermit can be revoked andyoucan no longer renew your residency from abroad and you may not beable to return without a re-entry visa.Anyone returning from abroad is expected to observe a 14-day quarantine before contact with wider society.

If you do not havea placewhere you can quarantine, you need to ask for a place from the Civil Protection(Protezione Civile) organization and you would have to foot the bill.

During lockdown, it was also forbidden to take public transport to your home, whichmeant that you needed to also own a car to transport you from theairport or port.

Practicaldifficulties

Theproblem, Mason tells InfoMigrants, is that border police or airline companiesin other countries may not be aware of what is written in Italian law. What thecitizen might have read, what ASGI has written about, and whatthegovernment has sanctioned -- all this might not be known to foreign authoritieswhen they see a document which has expired.

Under law, airlines areresponsible for flying you back to your country of origin if, at theairport, you are refused entry. So that might make it difficult forsome returning citizens to get back to Italy with an expireddocument.

Atthe moment, says Mason, if you are traveling through severalcountries to reach Italy, it is best if you get a document from theItalian embassy, or consulate in your country, attesting to the factthat you are traveling back to Italy to renew your residency permitand that Italy is where you are normally resident. This documentshould remove any possible barrier to your return.

Are-entry visa will be necessary for those whose residency expires after August 1, 2020. ASGI recommends that as well as talking to theItalian embassy, migrants in Italy should go to the InternationalOrganization for Migration (IOM) or the High Commission for RefugeesUNHCR if you need help with any issues that arise with your migrationstatus in this period.

Systemblocked and overloaded

Thenext problem arises when you try and get anappointment to renew your expired document. "People now are havingto wait at least six months for an appointment," says Mason. "Thereis so much demand that the electronic system is completely blocked in some districts."Added problems are that each region in Italy has a different way ofissuing residency permits and for issuing receipts while someonewaits for their documents to be processed.

"Halfof them are not legal documents," says Mason. "It might be ascrap of paper with a name and a date written on it; if you are luckythere might be a photo, but not often." Try using your scrap ofpaper to then open a bank account or prove to another official thatyou have applied for your residency permit and you are waiting forthe next appointment, he recommends.

Whathappens to those who are stuck abroad for even longer?

If you have a 2 years permit andyouremain outside Italy for longer than half the period your document isvalid, your residency will be automatically invalidated.

Onewould normally consider the blocks put on air travel to constitute avalid reason as to why someone hasnt been able to return to Italy. However, the ASGI document counsels foreign residents of Italy abroadto make copies of all the reasons why they are unable to return toItaly (local blocks on flights, Italian bans on flights etc. as wellas tickets booked which couldnt be used.)

ASGI suggests you sendthese copieseither via a personal registered email (a PEC in Italy which islike sending a letter registered post and provides you with a receipton sending) or via a migrant association or via registered post tothe Questura (police headquarter) in your province of residence, communicatingto them that it is impossible to return to Italy at this time.As soonas the blocks are lifted, ASGI recommends that foreign residentsshould return to Italy immediately so as to avoid having their residence permits revoked permanently.

If you dont manage to return to Italy before August 31, for whatever reason, you could find it very difficult to renew it. At that point,you would haveto apply for a re-entry visa. And even if flights are blocked, police may ask you to prove that you tried every means, ports, over land etc which prevented you from making it back to Italy in time.

You canfind information on migration and the latest directives on the ASGIwebsite https://www.asgi.it/chi-siamo/english-version/

Alsothe following sites might be helpful: Meltingpot:https://www.meltingpot.org/Welcome-to-Italy-a-practical-handbook-for-migrants.html

Unionslike CGIL (Italys largest) have an immigration service:http://www.cgil.it/cat/immigrazione/

IOMItaly: https://www.iom.int/countries/italy

UNHCRItaly: https://www.unhcr.it/

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'It's a dramatic situation': Migrants in Italy face backlogs for renewing their residency - InfoMigrants

The complexities of vulnerabilities of marginalised sections have been propelled further by the socio-economic impact of COVID-19. The author looks at the political economy of differently-abled migrant women workers to understand the deprivation and explore government intervention in the same.

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WhenAnita Ghai, a prominent disability rights advocate, said that the heterogeneity of disability is often ignored in terms of governance and policymaking, she had a point.

Despite existing policies, there are loopholes in their implementation. The political economy of disability needs to be understood. The attitude of the governments seems to be that if they invest in infrastructure for persons with disability, they would be losing money.

Women and the differently-abled form one of the most vulnerable sections in society.To understand the struggle of differently-abled migrant women in India we should closely look at the political economy and their social deprivation.

The recent migrant exodus has caused a wave of reverse migration in the country where the migrant workers are returning to their native states. This is a direct result of the national lockdown imposed in India, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in an economic recession.

It has forced businesses to shut down and has driven migrant workers out of jobs and means of livelihood. This has prompted migrants to travel long distances and cross state borders on foot due to transportation restrictions and economic depravity.

Unfortunately, government mechanisms to protect labor rights have been disregarded and ignored. The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act stipulates an additional displacement allowance of 50% of monthly wages at the time of recruitment and journey wages for the migrant to return back to their residence in the other state. This act has been one of the most unregulated labor rights in recent times.Other social welfare schemes are unable to reach the migrant workers as their current residence is different from their residence registered in their PAN cards and Adhaar cards.

Women bear the larger brunt of the inter-state migrant crisis. They are underpaid and their gender-specific needs are unaccounted for.

The most vulnerable of migrant women labor are those employed in unskilled to semi-skilled jobs. They usually belong from rural areas and migrate with their families to work in factories and construction sites in urban areas.

A study found that 78% of rural and 59% of urban women migrant workers were working as unskilled manual labor; 16% and 18% were in skilled manual work in rural and urban areas respectively.They have reported poverty, debt, lack of local employment, and migration of their husbands the main reasons for inter-state migration.

Reports suggest that the rate of suicide among female migrant workers is on the rise and the irregularity of their immigration status is directly proportionate to the amount of abuse they suffer. Apart from working in factories and in households as domestic help female migrant workers also have the responsibility to take care of their household, which is not economically accountable.

A large number of interstate migrating families presently do not have access to food and medication. In these excruciating circumstances, menstrual health and hygiene have been ignored- specifically because sanitary products were not even counted as essential goods (till March 30).

Pregnant migrant women were forced to give birth on highways and were relying solely on cloth and ash to deal with their menstrual cycles. Without medical aid and essential healthcare mechanisms, giving birth to a child while the mother is malnourished and dehydrated is a risk many women take. Existing legal mechanisms like the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act fail to serve their purpose in such situations.

Differently-abled migrant women face the larger disproportionate brunt of lockdown. Apart from the migration crisis, women also become victims of domestic violence. The Human Rights Watch refers to them as Invisible Victims of Sexual Violence. Domestic violence can range from physical violence, the threat of abandonment, verbal abuse, and so on. Domestic violence cases usually go unreported due to stigmatization and social isolation the woman needs to go through and lack of economic standing. Even though several sexual harassment reforms have been amended on paper, their lack of enforcement has prevented women from easy access to justice.

According to the Disability Guidelines issued by the Health Ministry, which states: Special care should be taken with respect to women and children with disabilities. Even so, there have been several reports of violence and domestic abuse towards differently-abled women and children, labeling them as a burden on the household and society.

Images of differently-abled and elderly being carried around on the back of their coworkers and family have flooded the internet. It is important to note that visually and mentally impaired migrants need constant support to navigate their daily life.

In the current pandemic and the social-distancing norm, they fear for their jobs and life. A report by PARI (give full form and say who they are) discussed two visually impaired migrants who begged on streets and worked in the railway station, wondering who would help them down trains and buses or buy from their street-side shops. The lack of inclusivity infrastructure in the country prevents them from having easy access to information and transportation.

One migrant worker noted that to even read Braille signage they need to constantly touch things which put them at high risk for contracting the virus. Unlike most of us, differently-abled migrant women cannot work virtually and earn for them or their families. As there is a dearth of information focusing on differently-abled women migrants and their grievances are not covered by mainstream media, it is hard to expect any rapid change in government policy or amendments to the existing acts. Their complex intersectional identity and societys ignorance towards their needs have hindered them from equality and forbid them to be empowered and independent.

The government needs to create an effective door to door delivery mechanisms of essential items for differently-abled people. Now that lockdown restrictions have been removed in most states, the government needs to make sure that people get back on their feet and are provided with essentials.

The government is generating cards for differently-abled people which will make them derive benefit from a number of schemes. The lockdown has generated a rise in local entrepreneurship, and it is anticipated that it will increase local employment. This may benefit differently-abled rural women as they can keep earning and be with their families, without the need to migrate.

(Author is an undergraduate at Jindal Global Law School. Views expressed are personal.)

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Differently-abled Migrant Women Workers Grapple with the Pandemic - The Leaflet

Written by Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey | New Delhi | Updated: July 20, 2020 9:37:32 am An interaction with around 200 migrant workers from Unnao, Sitapur, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kushinagar and Saharanpur districts in UP, gives a picture very different from what the government has been claiming.

In the wake of migrant workers returning following the lockdown, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced on May 24 that his government will set up of a commission to create employment opportunities in the state. He said the commission will conduct skill mapping of migrant workers and provide them jobs and social security.

An interaction with around 200 migrant workers from Unnao, Sitapur, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kushinagar and Saharanpur districts in UP, gives a picture very different from what the government has been claiming. Not one of the workers surveyed in these districts has been approached by the government for skill mapping or for providing them guidance for any kind of livelihood options in their home state. Only one of them had received monetary support of Rs 1,000 twice, though about half of them were provided with the 35-kg ration kit benefits promised to all the returning migrant workers. However, the cash benefit could be availed only by those who had used state-owned transport, which was near absent.

Most of the migrant workers had been employed by the construction industry in the National Capital Region, Haryana and Punjab. Some of them worked with plaster of paris and did marble masonry. Some were polishing marble in Telangana. Still others were tailors in Ahmedabad, or worked in hotels in Mumbai. A few had work in factories producing crockery, hosiery and clothes. The farthest anybody worked was in a zarda factory in Karnataka. The few women among the returnees worked as domestic workers or were employed in cloth factories in Ludhiana.

Only less than 10 per cent of them got to travel free by government transport. Most of them spent their own money to travel by various kinds of private vehicles, on buses, auto-rickshaws etc, often changing the vehicle at some place, and even walking part or full distance. For example, when the police would not let their vehicles cross the Delhi-UP border, they would walk up to Ghaziabad or even Aligarh, some along the railway tracks to avoid the police, and then hail a vehicle. Often, they travelled in groups so that costs could be shared. The amount a person spent on travel was upwards of Rs 2,000.

About 10 per cent of them were quarantined the quarantine centres were mostly neighbourhood schools for 14 days. Others were told to go home and voluntarily quarantine themselves inside their homes. Relatives of workers quarantined at most centres were asked to arrange food for their quarantined family member.

Three-fourths of these workers are young, below the age of 35 years and close to 70 per cent of them belonged to the Scheduled Castes. Only 13 per cent of the workers were from the general category, indicating that the most underprivileged in the society continues to be from the bottom-most segment of the Hindu caste order.

Most of the workers who have returned, especially those belonging to the SC community, do not own enough land to sustain their families while living in the village. However, they are also aware that in the coming year, and possibly even the next one, there will be no work for them at the places they had left in desperation. Hardly anybody got paid for the period of lockdown, despite the appeal by the prime minister. About 20 per cent of them also have payments worth more than 7.5 lakh in salaries and wages pending for work done earlier. Overall, the workers stare at a bleak future.

Even though the chief minister announced more than once that needy people will get ration even without a ration card, the fact is that the returnee migrant labourers who dont have ration cards or their names have been struck off from ration cards because they were not staying in their village, are neither getting the regular quota of ration nor the free quota made available during the coronavirus crisis period. Only a little more than 50 per cent of the migrant workers who have returned get their quota of ration. The situation with work under MGNREGA is worse. Less than a third of the people who have returned got work from one to 20 days. But only about a third of them had received payments.

Forgetting that workers have their own agency and rights over their lives, the chief minister had said that if states wanted to re-employ migrant workers they would have to take the UP governments permission. Prem, a native of Sitapur who had been working with his family of six adults in Ludhiana for the last 12 years, laughed at this statement. He said: It is not possible to start factories overnight or even in a few months or a year or two in UP. Our entire family works in factories and earns Rs 55,000 a month. Who will give us that sort of skilled work here? When we left we knew only agricultural work but now we know printing and other works. We will go back as there is no choice.

This article first appeared in the print edition on July 20 under the title Unkept promises to workers. Dhuru works with the National Alliance of Peoples Movements and Pandey, a Magsaysay awardee, is with Socialist Party (India). The writers would like to acknowledge the help of Vishal Kumar, Shivi Piplani and Rakesh in collection, compilation and verification of data.

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Despite govt claims, migrants continue to be vulnerable and abandoned - The Indian Express

The International Labour Organisation in a recent report, Covid-19 and the World of Work describes the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the worst global crisis since World War-II and that in India, 400 million workers in the informal economy will slip into deeper poverty. ILOs other report, Covid-19 and Child Labour: A Time of Crisis, A Time to Act highlights that the pandemic may push millions more children into child labour and poverty. A study by World Food Organisation says that the pandemic will result in more than a quarter of a billion population suffering acute hunger by the end of 2020. Globally people are fast losing their livelihoods, wages and income due to lock downs and restrictions imposed on industries, business, informal workplaces, dip in demand and stricter curbs on goods, services and supply chains.

Migrant workers form the largest workforce engaged in the informal sector in India. They are mainly concentrated in 53 million plus urban agglomerations that comprise 140 million of 377 million urban population of the country, equivalent to 43 percent of total urban population as per the 2011 Census. Over the years, successive governments have cared little about the numbers, workplaces, working conditions and identities of these workers and a majority of them remained invisible, unnoticed and ignored due to inadequate implementation of government laws and policies. The Interstate Migrant Workers Act 1979 enacted to regulate and protect the rights of migrant workers has been historically neglected and poorly implemented in India.

Migration or mobility of citizens for work is a fundamental right enshrined in the Indian Constitution. The Migrant Workers Act 1979 permitted the functioning of middlemen to ferry migrant workers and supply them to factories, construction sector and manufacturing units. This led to millions being recruited, shipped and employed in informal sectors in urban areas. Real state, brick-kilns, stone crushing, hybrid seed production, cotton ginning, spinning mills and apparel factories today employ 90% of their workers through a well-organised labour trafficking business network of contractors and middlemen across states. They are far from being regulated or inspected by enforcement agencies. The construction sector in India is one of the largest providers of wage employment to both skilled, unskilled workers, employing 49.5 million people. The modern textile industry in India employs more than 35 million workers and India as the second largest brick producer, employs an estimated 2.3 million migrant workers. Historically, brick kilns have been in news for rampant use of forced labour and debt bondage.

The pandemic has for the first time in India brought the issues of migrant workers to the centre-stage of public discourse and streamed indistinct and painful images of migrants leading to widespread anguish and public outcry. People actually saw hapless migrant labourers and those engaged in low paying, dirty, dangerous, demeaning jobs on the street with no job or a place to stay. As per government sources, close to 67 lakh migrant labourers equivalent to the total population of Republic of Bulgaria moved back to their source states. However, we have no information as to how many among them are women, men, children and youth, or under what conditions were they stranded. No details are available on children employed in factories, debt migrant labourers, sex workers, domestic workers and garment workers allegedly forced to work in distress conditions.

A research brief released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in May 2020 indicates that loss of employment and livelihoods in developing countries may produce conditions ripe for trafficking. Returnee migrants have their own sordid story to tell. They have become neo-untouchables in their own villages. A recent rapid assessment being carried out by Human Liberty Network in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar highlights that income shocks have increased vulnerability to debt bondage and trafficking. There is lack of access to job cards under MGNREGA and benefits under government schemes. Loss of livelihoods and diversion of government resources towards Covid-19 has also resulted in lack of nutritional and preventive health services to the most vulnerable.

News stories now indicate that even as many migrants remain in source states, some have started moving back to the metros and cities they abandoned, simply because they need a livelihood. As the pandemic prolongs, they may be forced to accept lower wages or whatever work comes their way, falling further into the trap laid by unscrupulous middlemen and traffickers. Employment and Decent Work for peace and Resilience Recommendation, 2017 by ILO mandates that Governments ensure marginalised groups freely chose employment during rebuilding and rehabilitation measures post any disaster. Most victims of trafficking in India disproportionately represent people from traditionally disadvantaged gender, caste, religious groups and people living in last mile regions. It is ironical that they have to bear the cost of the pandemic. It is imperative that the Government addresses this situation through a well-calibrated mechanism of employment, food, health, social and human security.

While it is crucial for returnee migrants to reclaim their lost jobs in the cities, it is the responsibility of the Government to start working towards creating healthy, non-exploitative and decent working and living conditions for them. Suspension of labour laws through notifications and ordinances by some state might help the industries but will have adverse impact on the rights and privileges of migrant workers. The world of work for informal and migrant workers needs to be reshaped through urgent multi-stakeholder collaboration and targeted interventions among communities, state governments and CSOs to improve livelihood, social entitlement, social protection, nutrition and health access and thereby reduce vulnerability to debt bondage and human trafficking.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Perils of the pandemic and clouds of human trafficking - The Times of India Blog

The third Rupert Cornwell Prize for Journalism has been won by Thomas Graham, a scientist by training and now a freelance writer on a broad range of topics.

The annual award is aimed at younger journalists towards the start of their careers, and Mr Graham was the most impressive of the candidates in another crowded field of talent. His winning proposal is for a series of features on the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, exploring in particular how the territories are being affected by the continuing migrant crisis. The onset of Covid-19 has, as elsewhere, complicated an already difficult life for those seeking refuge and a better life.

I am very pleased and excited to have been offered this opportunity. It is an honour to undertake this project. I hope that I can live up to the reputation of a much-missed and fine writer, Mr Graham said.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The 5,000 prize is supported by The Independent and will be awarded by the Rupert Cornwell Trust.

On behalf of the judges and the trust, Cornwells widow Susan, US congressional correspondent for Reuters, praised Mr Grahams innovative and thoughtful proposal.

We were especially pleased to see how Tom was able to identify so many intriguing and compelling stories in such a relatively neglected corner of the world. Tom is plainly a talented journalist who greatly deserves our support.

In a competition which attracted a high calibre of candidates, the judges also highly commended Ellen Halliday and Amanda Coakley for their proposals which were extremely promising and imaginative.

The Rupert Cornwell Prize was established in memory of the distinguished foreign correspondent and writer who died three years ago. The goal is to help fund a suitable journalistic project in any of the broad regions Cornwell spent much of his career covering North America, Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Thomas spends time in Bolivia when reporting on a story about some planned hydroelectric dams (Thomas Graham)

Cornwell was one of the most elegant of writers in recent times, and embodied the pioneering spirit of The Independent when he joined it as one of its first recruits in 1986. He remained one of its wisest and most eloquent voices, writing for the title until his death in 2017.

From his earliest reports for the Financial Times in Rome to chronicling the decline of the USSR, and on to the Trump phenomenon, he was a source of inspiration for all his colleagues, and now for a new generation of writers.

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Rupert Cornwell Prize 2020: Thomas Graham named this years winner - The Independent