Written by Arabstoday Saturday, 25 May 2013 14:10

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Thursday, 11 April 2013 08:44

A total of 1,729 Syrian refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly, have entered the Kingdom over the past 24 hours.
A Jordan Armed Forces source said Jordanian troops, mainly border guards stationed along the 370-kilometre border between Jordan and Syria, are working hard to protect the borders.
The source added that the border guards assisted the incoming refugees and provided emergency aid to the injured before sending them to the refugee camp in Mafraq.
The number of Syrians who have entered the Kingdom since the beginning of this week has reached 9,901.

Friday, 23 March 2012 14:22

The city of Sao Paulo is a crowded city of over 11 million people. It is a city of many contrasts where those who live an affluent life often intersect daily with those who have little to nothing. Sprawling slums, known as ‘favelas,’ can be seen next to luxurious neighborhoods.
Numerous high-rise blocks in downtown Sao Paulo have also been occupied by up to 4,000 squatters at one time, as people live on the edge of life where desperation is large and opportunity is small. Sao Paulo is a city like all cities in the world though where women at every level want to help their families by getting jobs.
Recent World Bank research through a new “World Development Report 2012 – Gender Equality and Development,” shows that between 1998 and 2008 about 552 million women joined work forces around the world. But this overall rate of female labor force participation rose only a slim 50.2 to 51.8 percent between 1980 and 2009, while the male rate actually fell from 82 to 77.7 percent.
Currently 4 in 10 workers worldwide are women.
But according to the Director of Poverty Reduction at the World Bank, Ana Ravenga, “Women still receive lower payments, have smaller businesses than men, are in higher numbers in unpaid jobs [72 percent in Brazil] and face more difficulty getting credit.”
Although the scenario seems very far away from ideal there are some new initiatives that are helping to change this outlook in São Paulo, Brazil. One of them is a unique project called “Mãos de Maria,” that has been created to help women who live inside the second biggest slum in São Paulo.
This is the slum known as favela Pariasópolis, literally translated as ‘Paradise City,’ has 1oo,000+ inhabitants. Almost half, 47 percent, of the inhabitants are women. The Mãos de Maria project has been training women since October 2009 enabling them to join the work force and to enter professional careers.
Recently women have been given the opportunity to become bread and pastry chefs with the creation of a new artisanal bakery sponsored by Mãos de Maria in September 2011. One of the favela Paraisópolis residents, Ivoneide Gonçalves da Silva, participated in the classes although she was already selling pastries out of her home. “I did the course because I needed to have a certificate in case I would work outside the community,” she said. “But during the classes I could learn news stuff with the teachers and the other women,” added Gonçalves.
Gonçalves currently makes $400+ Brazilian Real ($221 USD) per month, an amount that is seen by many advocates as wages that are still far too low, but it is also seen as a strong positive movement in the right direction for women who often have been sidelined by Brazilian society.

Friday, 28 September 2012 11:06

The three bloggers jailed this week for carrying out "propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" received an open and fair trial, the government said.
"In Vietnam, every citizen's right to freedom is clearly stipulated in the Constitution and other legal documents," Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.
"This right has always been respected. Just as in other countries, all law violations are punished in accordance with regulations of Vietnam's law and international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
Nghi was reacting to international criticism, including by the United States, over sentences handed down by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court, a report by the state-run Vietnam News Agency stated.
Nguyen Van Hai, known as Dieu Cay, 60, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on a charge of spreading propaganda against the state. Ta Phong Tan, 44, received a 10-year sentence and Phan Thanh Hai, 43 and a lawyer, was ordered to three years in jail.
All were members of the Free Journalists Club, an independent bloggers' website, and thought to have posted more than 400 articles, including 26 items containing anti-state comments.
Cay, a former soldier and a founder of the Free Journalists Club, was mentioned by U.S. President Barack Obama in his statement on World Press Freedom Day in May.
Cay was accused of being the main administrator of the blog, which no longer exists, a report by the blogger news website Rappler, published from the Philippines, said.
Cay wrote on matters considered sensitive to Vietnam's Communist Party-run government, including reporting on protests against China and the calls to boycott the Beijing Olympic torch relay when it passed through Ho Chi Minh City in 2008, the Rappler report said.
Tan is a former party member and police officer turned citizen journalist, Rappler said.
Tan was arrested in September 2011 and her mother died after immolating herself in July in front of government offices in Bac Lieu province as a protest against the charges against her daughter, Rappler said.
Vietnamese media said the bloggers' stories "distorted the truth about the state and party, created anxiety among citizens and supported schemes to overthrow the government."
Another defendant, Le Xuan Lap, 54, helped the others deliver the stories was ordered placed under close police supervision, the court said.
Immediately after the court handed down the sentences, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi urged the Vietnam government to release the three bloggers, in particular Cay.
"The government's treatment of Dieu Cay appears to be inconsistent with Vietnam's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to freedom of expression and due process," a statement by the U.S Embassy in Hanoi said.
"Vietnam's arbitrary use of vaguely worded national security laws to imprison critics of the government means bloggers are bearing the brunt of this assault on freedom of expression," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.
Earlier this month Vietnam also responded to the U.S. House of Representatives bill called the Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2012 (H.R. 1410).
The act aims to promote democracy in Vietnam by linking increases in U.S. non-humanitarian assistance to the Vietnamese government to improvements in Hanoi's human rights record.
But the bill is "based on erroneous and biased information on the enforcement of human rights in Vietnam" and will do nothing to develop human rights in the country, Nghi said in a report by the Vietnam News Agency.
Human rights are important to Vietnam and are best discussed on a one-to-one basis to narrow differences and improve understanding, Nghi said.