Syria crisis make hundreds of thousands of children missing education

illustration of Suri'ah refugee children sitting on a mattress in an abandoned school where food and shelter is provided by local organizations for charity in the Wadi Khaled area, North of Lebanon. (INTERMEDIATE/REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir)

United Nations, New York (AFP)-riots in Syria continue to rage without control, threatening hundreds of thousands of children's education, said the UNITED NATIONS children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday (5/3).

The world body add a recent assessment found that one-fifth of the school in the Middle East has suffered physical damage directly or used as a shelter for people left homeless.

UNICEF assessment shows very many schools have been destroyed, the teachers had found the presence of death, and the number has been freefall.

The political crisis erupted in March 2011 and later turned into riots and armed clashes, thus creating humanitarian crisis in parts of the Middle East.

"The educational system in Syria is the impact of the unrest," said Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, as quoted by Xinhua--which monitored Between Jakarta, Wednesday night. "Syria never proud with the quality of the school. Now the country is witnessing the achievements reached during the years of rapidly spinning 180 degrees. "

According to that assessment, one-fifth of the country's schools have suffered physical damage directly or used to accommodate persons who became refugees in their country (IDP).

In various cities of the most fierce conflict, such as in Idlib, Aleppo and Deraa, the children often can't attend school, sometimes just being present twice in a week. But in an area with a lot of IDP, crowded classes, sometimes up to 100 pupils.

The assessment, conducted in December, also found more than 110 teachers and many other teachers will no longer report to teach. In Idlib, teacher presence is nothing more than 55 percent.

Some schools have also been used by armed forces and armed groups involved in the conflict, so that parents are reluctant to send their children to school.
(C003)

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer; Car Insurance; Health Insurance

Read More

Thousands flee Philippine bombing

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
25 October 2011 Last updated at 13:46 GMT Philippines authorities say they are targeting a rebel faction of the MILF rebel group Thousands of Filipinos have fled an army offensive against Muslim guerrillas and criminal gangs in the south of the country.

The armed forces said they had launched air strikes for a second day on what they called a renegade faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

More than 10,000 people fled homes in three remote towns in Zamboanga Sibugay province, officials said.

Spokesmen said troops had encountered heavy resistance on the ground.

More than 20 soldiers have been killed in the fighting in recent days, with President Benigno Aquino under pressure formally to suspend a ceasefire agreement.

AFP news agency quoted MILF rebels as denying they were sheltering lawless elements, and reaffirming their commitment to peace talks.

The group has been involved in sporadic peace talks with the government since 2003 and has agreed a ceasefire in 2008.

'Streams of people'

About 10,800 residents have fled three towns in Zamboanga Sibugay on Mindanao island, officials say, as hundreds of troops and police, bomber planes and naval gunboats attempt to flush out about 120 holed-up gunmen.

Just to the south, a further 6,000 villagers had fled from al-Barka and outlying towns in Basilan island, Associated Press news agency quoted an official as saying.

"We have monitored streams of people moving to safer areas, away from the conflict zones," Adriano Fuego, head of the regional civil defence office, said according to Reuters news agency.

He said many of the displaced families were staying in schools and government buildings and appealed for food, water and other supplies.

But soldiers were encountering heavy resistance, security spokesmen said.

They said two soldiers had died along with six gunmen on Monday.

Mr Aquino says the current military action is aimed at those behind the deaths of 19 soldiers killed on the island of Basilan last week, and three others who died over the weekend, along with five plantation workers.

MILF has distanced itself from the armed band currently being targeted by the military.

The group's spokesman Von Al Haq urged an end to the offensive, saying it was displacing civilian supporters of MILF and endangering the peace process, AP news agency said.

Fighting in the southern Philippines has been continuing for more than 30 years and has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Another group, the Islamist militant Abu Sayyaf, has continued activities including bombings, kidnappings and other attacks while MILF has been on ceasefire.

Technology

News

Read More

Thousands riot in south China over land grabs: report

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Thousands of people have attacked government buildings in southern China in a protest over land sales, a newspaper reported on Friday, the latest outbreak of trouble in the economic powerhouse of Guangdong province.
The protests in Lufeng, a city of 1.7 million, are the latest sign of growing public anger over land grabs, generally carried out by either private or state-linked companies but with the acquiescence of local governments.
These property disputes, in a country where the government legally owns all land, have led to protests, fights with police, imprisonment and suicides, and created a headache for the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party.
Witnesses in Lufeng city said the protests, in which around a dozen residents were hurt, were triggered by the seizure of hectares of land and their sale to property developer Country Garden for 1 billion yuan ($156.6 million), Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported.
Directing their ire at the local seat of government and attacking buildings including the local Communist Party headquarters and a police station, the angry mob in some cases used "sticks, bricks and their fists," the Post reported.
Roads were also blocked, and a businessman said several thousand villagers had joined demonstrations outside government headquarters since Wednesday.
The trouble started on Wednesday morning when villagers demanded the return of their land, the report said.
GUANGDONG TROUBLES
The municipal government of Shanwei region, which includes Lufeng, confirmed the unrest in a statement issued late on Thursday night which said more than a dozen police officers were injured on Thursday, and six police vehicles damaged.
The Shanwei government accused villagers of having "ulterior motives" and of "inciting" other villagers to charge into the police station on Thursday afternoon by spreading rumors about police officers beating a child to death.
Four people have been detained for their role in organizing the protests on Wednesday, according to the website of Shanwei's local news service.
Earlier this year, in the Guangdong factory town of Zengcheng, thousands outraged migrant workers rioted over the alleged maltreatment of a female worker, torching government offices, smashing police cars and marching in their thousands through the streets.
Protests and incidents of "mass unrest" have risen recently, fueled by rapid economic transformation, according to Zhou Ruijin, a former deputy editor-in-chief of the People's Daily, writing in current affairs magazine 'China through the Ages'.
Between 1993 and 2006, the national number of recorded "mass incidents" such as riots and protests grew from 8,708 to around 90,000, Zhou wrote in the September edition of the magazine.
From 2007 to 2009, the number of such incidents was consistently above 90,000, he added.
"These conflicts are concentrated in rural land requisitions and urban housing demolition, as well as in resource development and environmental protection," wrote Zhou.
MESSAGES BLOCKED
Chinese authorities are wary of any discussion of such discontent spreading, and by Friday morning, searches for 'Lufeng' on China's Twitter-style microblogging service Weibo were blocked, with a message saying the "relevant legal regulations" prevented showing the search results.
The unrest in one of China's most economically important provinces, encompassing the famed Pearl River Delta "world factory" zone that accounts for around a third of China's exports, is a major challenge for Guangdong Communist Party chief Wang Yang.
Wang, who is widely expected to be promoted to China's highest leadership ranks in a once-in-a-decade leadership transition next year, has called for a more balanced "Happy Guangdong" development model emphasizing social harmony.
A message on the Internet bulletin board of the Southern Daily, Guangdong's official newspaper, says the residents of Wukan village have petitioned many times in 2009 and 2010 about the land disputes that triggered the riot.
"Please tell us, just who will take charge of this case? Do we really have nowhere to complain?" wrote a user.
(Additional reporting by Sisi Tang in Hong Kong and Chris Buckley and Sabrina Mao in Beijing, Writing by Sui-Lee Wee, Editing by Ken Wills and Daniel Magnowski)

Read More