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Kurdish refugee mother and child in a march to the refugee camps in Southeast Turkey

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Yamila Gonzalez Ferrer. Image: trabajadores.cu

HAVANA TIMES, May 25 (IPS) – Mercedes Toyo has begun smiling again, but only after years of crying and enduring violence, though painful memories continue to haunt her. “Now I’m falling in love with a 50-year-old man who tells me that I’m very withdrawn, that I don’t pay much attention to him,” she explained in the living room of her home.

Her story is no different from those of other women who have been battered by their partners. The Cuban Constitution and numerous laws assure women’s equality and the protection of the family, but the abuse that occurs in the intimacy of the home doesn’t always escape the fear and prejudice, nor is it reported to the authorities or tabulated in statistics.

“I never thought about going to the police; it would have been worse. Plus, nobody ever does that, everything remained within the family,” said a 55-year-old professional, who also went through that painful experience in her first marriage. . .

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Kim Hee Young, right, 21, a statistics major, and Choi Yoon Hee, 22, a computer science major, bought food tickets in the cafeteria at at Sookmyung Women's University using their cellphones. Image: Park Jin-Hee for the International Herald Tribune

SEOUL — Kim Hee-young, a statistics major at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, holds more or less her whole life in her hands.

She wakes up in the morning when her mobile phone detonates an alarm, a loud Korean pop song. She checks weather forecasts on its screen before selecting what to wear.

In the subway, Ms. Kim breezes through the turnstile after tapping the phone on a box that deducts the fare from a chip that contains a cash balance. While riding to school, she uses her mobile to check if a book has arrived at the library, slays aliens in a role-playing game, updates her Internet blog or watches TV. . .

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Image: BBC News

Most people would be only too keen to get out of the refugee camps where they spent their childhood but Gemma Tracee Apiku cannot wait to return.

She spent eight years of her young life as a refugee in Southern Sudan after her family escaped Uganda in the 1980s when the Idi Amin regime – in which her father was a soldier – was overthrown.

Life was grim living in the congested transit camps, with up to eight people living in a small hut. . .

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Wairagala Wakabi in The Hague (AR No. 212, 15-May-09) – IWPR – Thursday 21 May, 2009

Experts in the trial of accused Congolese leader Thomas Lubanga this week struggled to confirm the ages of child soldiers said to have been part of the Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC.

The specialists in age determination testified at the International Criminal Court, ICC, that, based on x-ray images, some may have been as young as 10 or 11 years old at the time they were allegedly UPC fighters.

Others, however, probably were not as young, said the experts, pointing out that the quality and limited nature of the images created a margin of error. . .

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Breaking News Image:

An internally displaced girl, seeking refuge from a military offensive in the Swat valley region, carries water atop her head inside the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) Jalozai camp, about 140 km (87 miles) north west of Pakistan's capital Islamabad May 20, 2009. Pakistani forces say they are making progress in their offensive against the Taliban in their Swat valley bastion following U.S. warnings that the militants posed an existential threat. REUTERS/Ali Imam (PAKISTAN CONFLICT POLITICS) REUTERS/STR/PAKISTAN

. . . for more information on the topic of Pakistan refugees go to
Reuters AlertNet . . .

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Handout photo received and taken on 18 May 2009 from the Democratic Voice of Burma shows people walking past Myanmar soldiers manning a road block in Rangoon

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi faced a second day of hearings Tuesday as international criticism of her trial grew.

Hundreds of police, some in full riot gear, were deployed along roads leading to Insein prison where the trial is being held behind closed doors.

Twenty-two witnesses are expected to testify against Aung San Suu Kyi in the trial, which her lawyer says could last three months. . .

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Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea,” drew an audience of 7,000 people to McArthur Court on May 7. His message was inspiring: Education of girls can change the world.

The quote he emphasized was, “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community.” Statistics show that when girls are educated: 1) infant mortality decreases, 2) population growth diminishes and 3) basic health and quality of life improve for everyone.

Friendship With Cambodia is a small-scale version of Mortenson’s work — only instead of educating girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we are educating girls in Cambodia,where half the girls and a quarter of the boys never go to school. Poverty is the main reason, but when girls are not valued their disadvantage is doubled. . .

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