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Khartoum accuses S. Sudan in rebel attack

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:44:55 GMT

KHARTOUM — Khartoum threatened retaliation on Sunday after accusing breakaway South Sudan of backing a rebel attack inside its territory, adding to tensions which have sparked international concern.
Rebels in a "revolutionary front" aimed at toppling the Khartoum regime claimed the attack in the disputed Jau area -- part of an oil-rich region on the poorly defined border -- as their first joint operation against government forces. "It is a very big victory," said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

The rebels claimed to have seized three tanks along with hundreds of weapons and vehicles in the joint operation with fighters from Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). "Joint forces managed to surprise them," he said. Sudan's foreign ministry said rebels accompanied by officers from South Sudan's army launched a "direct attack" on the area six kilometres (four miles) inside the border, in violation of a memorandum on non-aggression and cooperation signed this month.

"Sudan reserves the right according to international law to react to this attack," the ministry said in a statement, adding that it will complain to the UN Security Council and African Union. It is the latest flare-up over the Jau area and comes after UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the crisis between Sudan and South Sudan has become a major threat to regional peace and security. Britain this month expressed "grave concern at the recent build-up of forces and escalation of tensions in conflict-affected border areas."

The SPLM-N has for several months been fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states along the border with South Sudan. One analyst has dismissed the Revolutionary Front as "just a name," but Lodi said the joint attack -- albeit with a small JEM component -- showed their commitment to work together. "We are not just talking. We are doing it," he told AFP. Last November, both rebel groups joined with factions of Darfur's Sudan Liberation Army to form the front dedicated to "popular uprising and armed rebellion" against the government in Khartoum. "This attack is under the umbrella of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front," JEM spokesman Gibril Adam Bilal told AFP.

Sudan Armed Forces spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad confirmed that the area had come under attack, but he blamed the forces of South Sudan. "This attack was completely planned and sponsored by the government of South Sudan," he said. "The fighting is going on now."

Neither side could immediately give casualty figures. Access to the state is restricted, making independent verification difficult. In December, Sudan accused the South Sudan army of attacking the Jau region, but Juba's military insisted its troops were defending an area on their side of the frontier. Two weeks ago, Juba said Khartoum had bombed the same area from the air, violating the memorandum on non-aggression and cooperation. Washington has condemned the "unjustified and unacceptable" bombing of civilians by the Sudanese military in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

South Sudan broke away in July last year after an overwhelming vote for independence following more than two decades of war that killed two million people. Border tensions have since flared, with each side accusing the other of supporting rebels within its territory, while a major dispute over oil transit fees remains unresolved. Asked about Khartoum's latest accusations, Juba's information minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, said the rebels were Sudan's problem.

"We don't give any support to opposition groups in Sudan," he said. The ethnic minority insurgents from SPLM-N had previously fought alongside the former rebels now ruling in Juba. Lodi, the SPLM-N spokesman, said Sunday's joint attack followed formalisation last week of the Revolutionary Front's structure, and vowed that more combined operations will occur "when appropriate".

Poverty a stark spectre for 79m Pakistanis: Report

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:55:26 GMT

According to a study titled “Institutional Imperatives of Poverty Reduction”, by 2011-2012 as much as 43.1 per cent, or 79.1 million persons in the country will be destitute. The research was undertaken by Akmal Hussain; a professor at Beaconhouse National University and a well known expert on the topic of poverty.
The academic says his estimates are based on the elasticity of food price inflation with respect to the incidence of poverty. His research concludes that 40.7 per cent of Pakistan’s population would be classified as being ‘poor’ last year, compared to 38.5 per cent in 2009-10.

Last year, the government carried out the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) which provides basic information for working out poverty numbers. The exercise has yet to produce any official numbers on poverty trends in the country.

The most recent official figures are from 2005-06, when poverty was estimated at 22.9 per cent. The Pakistan Peoples Party led government did not accept the 2007-08 HIES that projected a reduction in poverty to 17.2 per cent, and there have been no official numbers available since then.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Hussain said that his own estimates were based on certain projection, but he was confident that they did not fall too far from the mark. If poverty were to be calculated using HIES 2010-11, the number would be close or even higher than his projections, he said. Offering his services, he said that he would provide even accurate figures for the government if it was willing to provide him with the raw data.

There are reports that the Planning Commission might take him up on the offer. It is considering assigning the job either to him, or to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. The paper also challenges the poverty estimates of the Musharraf regime, terming them incorrect. Instead, the study tries to establish that from 1999 to 2007-08, the incidence of poverty has increased by 3.8 percentage points from 30 percent in 1998-99 to 33.8 percent in 2007-08, with an additional 16 million people entering the category of poor over the period.

Musharraf’s government had claimed that it reduced the percentage of population below the poverty line from 34 percent in the year 2000-01, to 23 percent in the year 2004-05; that is, a reduction of 11 percentage points. This was meant to show that almost a third of Pakistan’s poverty stricken populace had been brought up within a period of four years. The author argues that if this was true, it would be one of the most remarkable economic achievements in the history of developing countries; including the Soviet Union under Stalin, and China under Mao. Even India had managed only a 10 percentage point reduction in poverty with its high average annual growth rate of 8 per cent.

The study also states that an analysis of the sources of growth, during the period 2000-01 to 2004-05, shows that the composition of growth during the period was pro-rich rather than pro-poor.

GDP growth during the period was overwhelmingly pro-rich since the sectors which contributed it were neither producing goods for the poor nor directly providing employment to them, claims the author. In fact, labour force survey data from the government shows that unemployment rates rose sharply from 6.1 per cent in 1999 to 8.3 per cent in 2004. Therefore, the nature and composition of GDP growth during this period could not be expected to have substantially reduced poverty, says Hussain.

Hussain said that the regime’s decisions to take 2001 as the base year for estimating poverty and measuring inflation on the basis of the Consumer Price Index, instead of inflation data of Pakistan Living Standard Measurement Survey (PLSM), led to the incorrect poverty estimates.

Taking the base year as 2000-01, which was plagued by bad harvests, and comparing it to the year 2004-05, which was comparatively much better, exaggerated the magnitude of poverty reduction. Similarly, the then government’s poverty estimate used an inappropriate inflation rate based on the consumer price index, which covered only 16 urban centers. It did not take into account prices in rural areas where the majority of the poor reside. Inflation rate data based on both urban and rural areas had been available with the PLSM survey but was never used, the study opines.

India's education malaise has all the hallmarks of a development disaster

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:28:32 GMT

If you want a glimpse of the challenges facing India's education system, there is no better vantage point than Rajpur primary school. Located in the tribal belt of the Shahabad hills of Rajasthan, the school serves some of India's most disadvantaged children. Poverty and illiteracy are endemic. Most of the kids crammed into the school's two classrooms are first generation learners; the majority have yet to master basic literacy and numeracy.

To understand why, you just have to witness a grade 1 lesson. Three groups of children sit in neat rows. The teacher reads to the youngest in monotone English, apparently oblivious to the uncomprehending faces before him. Another group is reciting multiplication tables. The older children are silently copying sums from a blackboard.

Welcome to the rote learning raj that governs India's primary schools. Teachers in Rajpur see their pupils not as active learners, but as empty vessels to be filled with facts. No provision is made to ensure the children gain basic literacy skills in the early grades. Only one of the five teachers is trained – and none speaks the home language of tribal children.

Teacher absenteeism is another problem. The headteacher complains he seldom has more than two of his five teachers present, while parents complain the head himself is an infrequent visitor.

The school is a microcosm of the education challenges facing India. On the one hand, the country is posting encouraging growth rates and is home to some of the world's finest technology institutes. On the other, it has a lower league school system delivering an abysmal quality of education, failing the country's poorest children, reinforcing social inequalities, and undermining the skill-base needed to create jobs, sustain high growth and eradicate poverty.

If education was measured solely by enrolment, India would be the success story of the past decade. In the space of a single primary school generation, out-of-school numbers have fallen from 25 million to 8 million. The primary school enrolment rate now stands at 95%, a level unthinkable 10 years ago. Even though many girls drop out after the age of 11, gender gaps have narrowed. So encouraging are the gains, an ambitious plan to achieve universal secondary education has been adopted.

Surging enrolment bears testimony to the impact of some impressive policies. There has been a massive expansion of school construction in disadvantaged rural areas, school fees have been removed, midday meal schemes have given parents added incentive to send children to school, and highly marginalised districts have been targeted for special support. The right to education act, adopted in 2010, made the provision of free education a basic human right enshrined in law.

But while impressive enrolment figures tell one story, only two in three children of primary school age attend regularly, and one in five drops out. Moreover, millions are receiving a poor-quality education. Just how poor was made evident by January's annual status of education report, which covers a representative sample of rural schools. The report found that fewer than half of grade 5 children could read a text designed for grade 2 pupils. Basic arithmetic results were equally poor: only 60% of grade 5 pupils could do a grade 2 addition sum.

To an extent, the problems go beyond the education sector. Despite two decades of high growth, India has registered limited success in combating child malnutrition. Around four in 10 children experience chronic malnutrition before reaching school age, with devastating – and largely irreversible – consequences for brain development and future learning outcome.

Yet the education system is equally problematic. Infrastructure improvements over the past decade have brought previously excluded populations into the country's schools, but poor teaching is commonplace. Many teachers are themselves badly educated. Multi-grade teaching in overcrowded classrooms creates a difficult learning environment, while teacher absenteeism – around one quarter of the workforce misses school daily – is another blight. Consequently, pupils receive fewer hours of instruction than they need, and what they do receive is often unfit for purpose.

Symptomatic of the malaise is the relentless rise of private schools, which are now attended by more than a quarter of children in rural areas. Most provide mediocre teaching at considerable cost to the poor, but at least the teachers turn up. It is difficult to think of a starker example of state failure.

Inequalities in education are at the heart of a wider malaise – a failure to translate high growth into human development. Poverty is falling slowly, inequality is rising, and India's dismal performance in areas such as nutrition, child survival and health continues. These are symptoms of a glaring divide in opportunities for education.

Looking ahead, the shortcomings in India's education system threaten to convert a potential demographic dividend into a disaster. The country has one of the world's youngest population profiles, and is getting younger: by 2020, the median age will be 28. India needs to create around 12m new jobs a year for young people entering the labour market. Harnessed to the skills provided through education, India's youthfulness is a potential asset that could fuel growth, employment creation and shared prosperity. Without education, the asset will become a social and political liability.

Having turned the corner on school enrolment, India now faces the hard part of education reform: recruiting, training and supporting a workforce equipped to deliver decent quality education and strengthening the accountability of schools, teachers and state governments.

Raising learning achievement levels while overcoming the country's deep-rooted inequalities will not be easy. But is it really beyond the capacity of India, a fully signed-up member of the space race, to provide kids with a proper education?

Spotlight turned on North's shocking child poverty

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:43:58 GMT

Northland's shocking poverty levels have been highlighted by the Salvation Army's state of the nation report, which warns of a permanent and dangerous fracture in society if more is not done to help the country's poor.

The report emphasises the gulf between the rich and poor, high rates of child poverty and youth unemployment, and rising national debt. The Salvation Army's Whangarei office expects another tough year, with more people seeking food parcels last month compare to the same month last year.

Director of community ministries Peter Mullenger said 260 food parcels were distributed in January 2011 and 279 last month. "Previously we assisted people with food parcels as a short-term emergency but now the need for food assistance is becoming a regular feature.

"A large number of clients want to work but the jobs aren't there. Children are in poverty because their parents are in poverty. What really needs addressing is the underlying issues and giving families the tools and life skills to better cope with their situation."

The Whangarei Child Poverty Action Group called on leaders to show the same determination in tackling social issues as the All Blacks did in winning the Rugby World Cup. Group spokeswoman Ngaire Rae said New Zealand ranked No1 of 25 countries in world rugby but 24 of 25 on children's health and safety in OECD countries.

"This report confirms what many of us in Whangarei and Northland have known for some time: families are struggling and will continue to struggle until our country decides it is worth investing in our children.

"Free primary health care for all children, good quality accessible and affordable early childhood education, increased provision for paid parental leave, an increase in minimum family incomes, breakfast in schools, ensuring all homes are healthy and fit for living, all of these initiatives would have immediate tangible benefits."

At a local level, she urged people to support the fledging Child Friendly Cities initiative, get involved with their local school food programme or sign the petitions started by Jazmine Heka and the Children Against Poverty movement.

Oil reliance fuels Nigeria's poverty

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:05:06 GMT

LAGOS, - A feckless political system and excessive reliance on an oil industry that generates few jobs have conspired to reverse Nigeria's battle against poverty despite economic growth, analysts say.
Many see Nigeria as a classic victim of the "resource curse" where oil or mineral wealth leads to the neglect of other economic sectors, exposes the country to volatile price swings, and fuels corruption and strife.

Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer, but the number of Nigerians living on less than a dollar a day rose to 61.2 percent in 2010 from 51.6 percent in 2004, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a report this week.

The figures marked a regression for Africa's most populous nation -- where the poverty rate had declined between 1996 and 2004 -- and showed Nigeria has not shared in the progress made elsewhere on the continent.

"It remains a paradox... that despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year," said Yemi Kale, the head of the statistics bureau. Nigeria's economy grew at an average 7.6 percent between 2003 and 2010, according to the World Bank.
Analysts said that while the lucrative oil industry has fuelled growth since crude was discovered some 50 years ago, the sector's dominance has been a curse for the poor, causing neglect in areas like agriculture.

"What we need is the opportunity for sectors involved with non-oil exports to provide jobs," said Olufemi Deru, former head of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, a key private sector grouping. He said Nigeria has failed to come up with an effective agriculture policy.

"We should not be importing so much rice. This is a staple food for both the rich and the poor," he said and suggested Nigeria restrict imports on basic foodstuffs to force a rise in agricultural production.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said in a 2010 report that, across Africa, extreme poverty declined from 1990 to 2008 but that progress was halted by the onset of the global economic crisis.

Some dispute those figures, and the UNDP has said its 2005 to 2008 assessments were based on projections, not hard data. The African country that has clearly made the most progress is Rwanda -- small both geographically and by population -- where a powerful executive branch led by President Paul Kagame is largely able to act unilaterally.

Poverty rates in the Great Lakes state, destroyed by the 1994 genocide, dropped from 57 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2010, roughly the period when Nigeria saw worsening poverty, according to government statistics. "The problem is the structural differences in the Nigerian situation," Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, an activist and World Bank consultant on poverty reduction, told AFP. Governments in Nigeria's 36 states have significant authority -- which they often use for personal enrichment, not the public good -- and can stymie initiatives that clash with regional political interests, said Ransome-Kuti. Nigeria rarely sees policies through and tends to do a "somersault" when political obstacles crop up, according to Deru.

National leaders in a country widely regarded as one of the world's most corrupt rarely generate sound policy, Ransome-Kuti added. "They are not just lazy gluttons. They are incompetent. They don't have the capacity to deliver," she said of politicians in the capital, echoing recent comments by Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. Nigerian lawmakers are estimated to make more than $1 million a year largely thanks to their various allowances.

The statistics bureau's report showed that poverty rates were highest in the country's north, notably in the northwest where 70 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar per day. Nigeria's 160 million people are roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.
Shehu Sani, an activist based in the northern city of Kaduna, said national systemic problems are compounded by regional obstacles. "In the north we have a problem of illiteracy, ignorance and resistance against modern ideas that could lift people out of poverty," the head of the Civil Rights Congress said.

Nigeria has been repeatedly advised to diversify its economy and reform its dysfunctional government but little is ever done, said Ransome-Kuti, adding: "The government has those reports on their shelves somewhere."This news was published in print paper. Access complete paper of this day.

Poverty fueling unrest in Nigeria's Kano, says report

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:58:49 GMT

KANO, Nigeria — Poor governance, poverty and unregulated migration have sparked a security crisis in Nigeria's city of Kano, where Islamists killed at least 185 last month, said a report released Wednesday.
The governor of the northern Kano state commissioned 15 business and political leaders to probe the causes fueling local unrest following the January 20 attacks in the state capital, claimed by Boko Haram Islamists.

"With the virtual collapse of governance structure at community level, making it impossible to keep track of activities in local communities... Kano has unfortunately been reduced to an urban jungle," said Magaji Dambatta, who headed the committee that authored the report. Boko Haram has carried out a series of both large and small scale attacks in several parts of Africa's most populous country, but the north has been hit hardest.

The January 20 coordinated gun and bomb assaults in Kano, Nigeria's second city, was the group's deadliest ever strike. There have since been several smaller attacks in the city. The report further cited "the uncontrolled influx of foreigners" as a cause of insecurity. On January 26, a security source said Nigeria had arrested some 200 foreign "mercenaries", mainly from Chad, who may have been involved in the attacks.
Many analysts doubt that Boko Haram has such a high number of foreigners in its ranks, arguing that the group's foot soldiers are largely dejected, unemployed youths in Nigeria's deeply impoverished mainly Muslim north.

The report commissioned by Kano state governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso called for "massive assistance" from the federal government to tackle poverty and crippling unemployment. The Kano state government also announced that the families of the victims of the January 20 attacks have received a compensation payment. The payout was funded by private donations and more than 150 families received $6,250 (4,770 euros), the government said.

Poverty simulation for 40 days of peace ongoing

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:19:44 GMT

Serve Yavapai, a collaboration of Prescott College and Community Counts, will join Catholic Charities, Coalition for Compassion and Justice, Prescott Area Women's Shelter, Prescott United Methodist Church, and Sacred Heart Catholic Parish to bring the community together in an interactive event designed to help people better understand the realities of poverty.

The poverty simulation, In Their Shoes, has participants role-play the lives of low-income families. Some will be AHCCCS recipients, disabled or senior citizens on Social Security. They will have the stressful task of providing for basic necessities and shelter on a limited budget through interactions with human service agencies, bill collectors, job interviewers, police officers and others.

Participants also will receive lunch and time to reflect upon their experience. In Their Shoes will take place from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Sacred Heart School Gymnasium, 150 Fleury Ave., in Prescott. The event is free and open to the public, however, space is limited so please call Catholic Charities at 778-2531 to register.

This event will mark the end of the 40 Days of Peace, a nationwide initiative led by Service for Peace. For 40 days, beginning with the Martin Luther King Holiday Jr. in 2012, individuals, families, and communities will focus on helping to start building a peaceful community.

This year, more than 400 community members made a commitment to support the 40 Days of Peace. According to a news release, In Their Shoes enables participants to discuss the potential for change within their local communities and create a broader awareness of poverty among policymakers, community leaders and others. City officials have been invited to participate and many have already made a commitment to attend.

"This event clearly speaks to Catholic Charities' mission to advocate for our community's most vulnerable, but it also contributes to the spirit of civic engagement that builds strong communities, promotes tolerance and increases our understanding of each other," said Haley Hyatt of Catholic Charities.

Nigerian poverty increases despite economic growth

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:32:34 GMT

Absolute poverty is measured by the number of people who can afford only the bare essentials of shelter, food and clothing. Almost 100 million people in Nigeria were living on less than $1 a day in 2010, 61.2 percent of the population, compared with 51.6 percent in 2004. Poverty is likely to worsen this year as wealth inequality continues to widen, NBS said.

Kurds endure poverty, grapple with assimilation

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:14:55 GMT

BEIRUT: As a teenager in a rural area of predominantly Kurdish southeast Turkey, Bahaeddin Hassan heard of a far-off, beautiful place called Lebanon. He was starstruck. At 15, he traveled overland through Syria to Beirut. Lebanon was not quite the paradise he had hoped for. Life was harsh, and for many years Hassan took whatever odd jobs came his way.

Today, at 57, having become a Lebanese citizen who has found fulfilling and lucrative work as a clothing exporter, he says he has stayed in his adopted land because it is indeed beautiful. But he laments the hardships many of his fellow Lebanese Kurds continue to endure. “We got nationality, but we didn’t get anything else,” says Hassan, president of the Lebanese Kurdish Philanthropic Association. No one protects or defends us. No one hears our voices.”

While most of Lebanon’s Kurds have become citizens, many have yet to feel truly at home within Lebanese society because the community continues to struggle with low education, high unemployment and lack of political representation.
Sitting in her home under a roof cobbled together out of scrap metal and tires, Fadia Mahmoud Ismail, 41, says she is proud of her Kurdish heritage, although she wouldn’t consider leaving Lebanon, which has been her home since she came to Beirut as a 13-year-old bride, a conflicted sentiment echoed by many in the community.

“I don’t feel Lebanese,” Ismail says. “My culture and language are Kurdish. I know I’m Kurdish, and that won’t change.” While she has no plans to leave Lebanon, Ismail does wish that she and her fellow Kurds had greater recognition in Lebanese government and society. “I’d be happy if I turned on the TV and saw a Kurdish representative,” she says.

In 1994, a total of 10,000 Kurds were granted citizenship under late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the second round of Kurdish naturalization after a handful of Kurds got citizenship in the 1960s under then-Interior Minister Kamal Jumblatt. After generations of statelessness, a status that excluded them from public and private sector services, many of Lebanon’s Kurds finally got the chance to enjoy the basic benefits of Lebanese society.

However, their citizenship came at a price, as the Kurds, like all other communities in Lebanon, were forced to become part of the country’s sectarian system.

Considered Sunni Muslims by the government, they don’t have any specific representation in Parliament, unlike Armenians, many of whom migrated to Lebanon at around the same time.

When it comes to charitable funding, their only non-governmental organization, the Lebanese Kurdish Philanthropic Association, is overshadowed by larger Muslim organizations. Among other concerns, Kurds have long worried about a lack of resources to provide their children with instruction in the Kurdish language. More recently, the organization has been struggling to help Kurds fleeing the violence in Syria.

Kurds were initially prevented from obtaining citizenship because of fears that they would upset the country’s delicate sectarian balance. Later, many were naturalized for the benefit of Sunni politicians who sought their votes. But that has hardly garnered them political clout. Kurds say that in a recurrent cycle, once election time has passed, politicians no longer pay them any heed.

A report published in November by Guita Hourani at Notre Dame University-Louaize, documenting the community’s upward mobility via naturalization, found that “the naturalized are not at all ‘free’ in their voting behavior, but are rather ‘prisoners’ of the one thing that should have freed them – their citizenship, because many believe that they owe their citizenship to one politician or other.”

Hourani notes that “the Kurds and other naturalized citizens continue to rely heavily on political patrons who, in return for favors going back to the event of naturalization in the first place, pay them back at the ballot box.”And approximately 40 percent of Kurds in Lebanon do not even have Lebanese citizenship. For years, their identification cards have indicated that their status is “under consideration.”

Today, after years of living in abject poverty, with menial jobs passed on from one generation to the next, little education and no political representation, Lebanon’s Kurds continue to struggle to escape their dire circumstances, despite the modicum of security attained through citizenship. Indeed, Kurds remain the least educated group in Lebanon.

Although many Lebanese Kurds have come to Lebanon in recent decades, Lebanon’s Kurdish community dates back to the 12th century, when the Ayyubids took control of the region. Later, the Ottomans sent loyal Kurdish families from the empire’s interior to modern-day Syria and Lebanon, where they played an important administrative role.

These families – which included the Janbulad family, ancestors of Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt – became fully assimilated into the local culture. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, Lebanon saw its first major wave of Kurdish migration, when thousands of Kurds left Turkey for nearby Lebanon and Syria. The second significant influx of Kurds to Lebanon took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as many fled poverty and political repression in Syria and Turkey.

Although there are non-Muslim Kurdish communities in other countries, the Kurds of Lebanon all share the Sunni Muslim faith, as well as an emotional affinity for their ancestral homeland, which spans parts of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. They speak two dialects of Kurdish, Kurmanji and Mhallami (a mixture of Arabic, Kurdish, Syriac and Turkish). Despite the linguistic difference, the two tend to be mutually intelligible, though Kurmanji speakers are generally better able to understand Mhallami speakers than vice versa.

Otherwise, the Kurds in Lebanon couldn’t be more divided, with the community’s estimated 60,000 having aligned themselves with a plethora of political parties throughout the country’s turbulent modern history, often to the detriment of their own well-being and security.

During Lebanon’s Civil War, Kurds fought in the ranks of Lebanese left-wing and Palestinian militias, hoping to earn money and allies. Instead, their conflicting allegiances and lack of unity left them vulnerable, forcing the resettlement of Kurds who were no longer safe in their previously ethnically diverse neighborhoods.

In the early 1990s, following the Lebanese government’s destruction of several of Beirut’s squatter quarters, to which many Kurdish families had relocated during the war, about a quarter of Lebanon’s Kurds emigrated to European countries, while many others left the country’s capital for the Bekaa Valley, Tripoli and Syria, further scattering much of the already fragmented community.

One Lebanese Kurd, while acknowledging his community’s difficult circumstances, suggests that Kurds themselves could do more to initiate change. “We can’t put the blame entirely on the authorities and society. The Kurds are also to blame for their lack of upward mobility,” says Lokman Meho, director of university libraries at the American University of Beirut

“Most are illiterate, many families prevented their girls from going to school, and menial jobs are passed from one generation to the next,” adds Meho, a rare example of a Lebanese Kurd who has reached a high level of professional success. His parents, who had never attended school themselves, encouraged their children to pursue an education.

Because of his Lebanese citizenship, Meho qualified for a college scholarship from the Hariri Foundation, allowing him to attend AUB. He then went on to obtain his master’s in library science and doctorate in information technology from universities in the U.S., returning to Lebanon three years ago to run the AUB libraries.

Despite his level of education and work, Meho says that growing up he always felt like a second-class citizen. Lebanese biases are often sectarian in nature, but Meho’s childhood was spent among neighborhood kids who, despite being fellow Muslims, called him “dirty” and “foreigner.”

“All Kurds are proud to be Kurdish and Lebanese. They feel both identities equally,” Meho believes. Still, he thinks, “it could have been more tilted toward Lebanese if they hadn’t suffered so much.”

Rwanda says slashed poverty rate in five years

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:46:23 GMT

The proportion of Rwanda's population living in poverty dropped from 57 percent in 2006 to 45 percent in 2011, according to data released Tuesday. "We are happy with the valuable progress we have seen in these numbers," President Paul Kagame told the an attendance of around 500 diplomats, aid workers and officials gathered in Kigali to review the data.

"But we are also aware there is more work to be done, not less."The effect of genocide-scarred Rwanda's rapid climb off the bottom of world poverty rankings is being felt in a wide range of sectors from education to public health, the statistics showed.

The data also showed that contraceptive use jumped to 45 percent in 2011 from 25 just three years earlier. Infant mortality, meanwhile, dropped to 50 per 1,000 live births in 2011. Primary school completion rates for 2011 reaching 79 percent for boys and 82 percent for girls, far surpassing Rwanda's targets, while secondary school enrollment doubled between 2006 and 2011.

"While it has been the shared dream of all Rwandans, few could have foreseen the speed with which our country is moving from widespread poverty to development and prosperity," Rwandan Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said in a statement.

"We are determined to redouble our efforts so that this great progress continues unabated.""These results are a major milestone in the long-term vision of the country," Clay Parker, Managing Director of Bridge2Rwanda, an NGO focused on sustainable economic development and leadership, told AFP.

"Rwanda has shown strong commitment to setting a standard, starting with the well-being of its people. I believe these strategies can and will be replicated by many of the world's poorest countries."

According to International Monetary Fund figures, real GDP growth in Rwanda is expected to reach 8.8 percent for 2011, higher than previously expected, and up from 7.5 percent the previous year.