Asiatica Association

According to Global Trends 2016, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports, one person is forcibly displaced every three seconds, meaning 20 people every minute of the day, nearly 66 million people year, and the number increases every year. The UN High Commissioner Filippo Grandi urges "solidarity and a common purpose in preventing and resolving crisis" to properly protect and care for the world's refugees, internally displaced and asylum-seekers; who currently number 22.5 million, 40.3 million, and 2.8 million, respectively.

“The world’s biggest producer of refugees” remains Syria, with 12 million displaced people. There are 7.7 million displaced Colombians, 4.7 million Afghans and 4.2 million Iraqis. In 2016 "the biggest new factor" was South Sudan, which is in a civil war since 2013, with some 737,400 people fleeing by the end of the year. In 2016 of all the people fleeing war, disasters, and persecution, about 84 per cent relocated in low- or middle-income countries. It means that developing countries are hosting the majority of the world’s refugees. Of that figure, 1 out of 3 people, roughly 4.9 million people, were hosted by the least developed countries.

This figures should make us think. The UNHCR agency said that “This huge imbalance reflects several things including the continuing lack of consensus internationally when it comes to refugee hosting and the proximity of many poor countries to regions of conflict”. Solidarity should be the key-word, and a serious and global politics to solve crisis and to prevent new ones. All the richest countries should take responsibility to globally develop a labor policy so that refugees can work in the hosting country, safeguarding their dignity and their right to live, and at the same time without creating strong economic and social imbalances in the society that hosts them.

According to Costs of War, of the National Priorities Project,  total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan allocated by US Congress through the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2012 are $1.38 trillion, with $807.4 billion to Iraq and $570.9 billion to Afghanistan.

Since June 2006 tribal women in Jharkhand have decided to oppose people usurping their water, forest and land (the 3 Js: jal, jungle and jameen). The Jharkhand tribal body Adivasi Moolvasi Astitva Raksha Manch will go on opposing these exploiters, explains Ms Dayamani Barla, journalist and chief convener of the Manch and one of the women's leaders.

Many times the steel magnate Lakshmi N Mittal expressed disappointment over delay in his proposed steel projects in the country. The Adivasi Moolvasi Astitva Raksha Manch actively advocates the plight of Adivasis and fights against land grabbing. Dayamani Barla said it would continue to oppose Mittal's project in Jharkhand, the ArcelorMittal project.

On April 28 — just two days before the US blitz on Osama’s compound in Abbottabad— I interviewed Ahmed Rashid, the famous Pakistani journalist and bestselling author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000) and Descent into Chaos (2008).

In this interview Rashid talks about the so called “Arab spring”, and particularly Libya, about the role of Europe in managing immigrants who are not political refugees from Africa, about the importance of solving the Israel-Palestine dispute for the Middle East and the Muslim world at large, and about the current situation in Pakistan and the possibility of a modern and moderate Islam.

Mr Rashid also talks about new initiatives by the US government that should bring Pakistan to a special understanding on the future of Afghanistan, and about a collaboration between the two countries on Afghanistan. All this two days before the US forces killed Osama bin Laden in a blitz near Abbottabad, in Pakistan, officially without the Pakistan government knowledge. Read the Interview.

Today the Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is turning 65. She is still under house arrest and has spent almost 15 of the last 20 years in this condition in Myanmar. In 1990, when she was elected Prime Minister as the leader of the National League for Democracy party, she could not take office since she had already been detained under house arrest before the elections.

Last Friday British Foreign Office Ministers Friday called for her immediate and unconditional release and this week the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention pronounced her detention as a flagrant violation of international law.

On March 10, 2009 Buddhists and Tibetans all over the world will celebrate the Tibetan uprising, when an anti-Chinese and anti-Communist revolt erupted in Lhasa. To commemorate the event we want to point out out the beautiful site British Photographers in Tibet: British Photography in Central Tibet 1920 - 1950. You will enjoy pitctures of a country, which is now partly China, partly dead.

The collections are preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the British Museum (London). The exceptional photographers are Charles Bell (1870-1945), Frederick Spencer Chapman (1907-1971), Arthur Hopkinson (1894-1953), Rabden Lepcha, Evan Nepean (1909-2002), Hugh Richardson (1905-2000), Harry Staunton (1908-1945). You will also enjoy photographies taken in the expeditions, included in books, and Spencer Chapman’s film rolls.

On February 16, 2009 the Italian Parliament has unanimously approved the Motion Boniver on the initiatives of the government for the protection of human rights and the statement of democratic freedom in Burma. This is the full motion.