KT 3-4-2013_Layout 1 - Kuwait Times

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013
Indian court ends travel ban on Italy ambassador
KERBET AL-KHALDIYE: A Syrian woman carries her children near their makeshift refugee camp in the mountains in the area of Kherbet Al-Khaldiye, on the Syria-Turkey border. — AFP
News
in brief
Saudi deports Yemenis
SANAA: Thousands of Yemeni workers have been expelled
from Saudi Arabia after it imposed new labor constraints
affecting millions of expatriates in the oil-rich kingdom, an
official said yesterday. The new regulations introduced by the
Saudi labor ministry aim to reduce the number of foreign
workers to create jobs for millions of unemployed Saudis.
“Thousands of Yemenis had to leave Saudi Arabia. They were
victims of an arbitrary application of the new regulations,” a
Yemeni government official said. He said workers saw their
residency permits torn into pieces by Saudi government representatives.
Under the new rules, foreigners are allowed to
work only for their legal sponsors in the kingdom while their
spouses cannot take up jobs. Many foreigners enter Saudi
Arabia on the sponsorship of a Saudi national but end up
working for others, or set up their own businesses. Around
one million Yemenis live in neighboring Saudi Arabia, transferring
around $4 billion annually to their impoverished
nation, according to non-official estimates.
‘Restoring BBC’s reputation’
LONDON: New BBC director-general Tony Hall took up his
post yesterday, starting the task of restoring the reputation
of the world’s biggest broadcaster that has been rocked by a
child sex abuse scandal. Hall walked into the BBC’s
Broadcasting House headquarters in central London to tackle
an in-tray topped with the fallout from police investigations
which concluded that the corporation’s late presenter
Jimmy Savile was one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
The British Broadcasting Corporation was subsequently damaged
by a botched television report wrongly indicating that
a lawmaker was a paedophile.
KHERBET AL-KHALDIYEH: For millions of Syrians displaced by
fighting, every day is a struggle to survive, and for those in
Kherbet Al-Khaldiye, that means eating and drinking whatever
they can forage. “We eat herbs and collect stagnant rainwater to
drink and wash in,” says 24-year-old Hisham, his head covered in
a red and white chequered keffiyeh scarf. Hisham, who sports a
budding blonde beard, was about to enter university when the
fighting that has engulfed Syria erupted in 2011. Now he has
joined the wave of his compatriots displaced by the conflict. In
Kherbet Al-Khaldiyeh, a makeshift camp near the Turkish border,
Hisham shows off a nearly-dry rivulet of water, infested with fungi
and insects, surrounded by a swarm of children, many of
whom have contracted skin infections because of the dirty
water. Naida, 35, has seven young children. She bathes them in
the infested water because the nearest clean water supply is several
kilometers away.
“We pick herbs like mint and mallow in the countryside and
we cook them. We don’t have anything else to eat,” she says. “My
husband used to work in a quarry, breaking stone, but now we
have no more resources and no one to help us. Once we
brought a kilo of potatoes per family-how can we all live on a
potato a week?” Every so often, along with a group of other
women, Naida goes to the nearest village in search of potable
water. “We carry the cans on our heads for several miles,” she
says, her blue eyes faded with exhaustion. Ibrahim, 25, was living
in a village near the Minnigh airport-a key flashpoint between
Syrian rebel forces and the regime. The non-stop air raids and
shelling eventually forced him to flee, along with his two sons,
and around 20 other families. His village was able to save a few
of their animals and bring them along. “Each day we slaughter a
chicken like that one,” he says, glancing at a paltry specimen as it
passes. “That chicken would be for all of us, can you imagine
how much each person gets?” he says with a bitter smile.
More than a million Syrians have left the country since
peaceful protests against the regime of President Bashar Al-
Assad erupted in March 2011, spiraling into a civil war after his
forces unleashed a brutal crackdown on dissent. But not everyone
is able to cross the border and escape the violence, with
many lacking passports or sufficient money to make the journey.
Those residents have been forced to seek the safest places
they can within Syria.
For the roughly 100 people here, the safest place available
was this strip of countryside in Aleppo province, where they live
among the scattered remains of Roman ruins, a few kilometers
from the Turkish border. At first, they were living in holes in the
ground, lined with straw to provide some
protection against the cold and the snow,
Naida says. Now they have managed to
get tents marked with the logo of the
United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
In cold and unhealthy living conditions,
the little makeshift village also
struggles on with almost no access to
Page 11
medicine, particularly for sick children.
“By the time they get to the nearest
pharmacy, in Azaz (in northern Syria) or in
Turkey, the child is dead,” 25-year-old Issa
says, dressed in a warm coat in camouflage
colours that came from Syrian rebel
fighters.
Seated on a stone, set back from the
Jerusalem deal boosts
Jordan in Holy City
Displaced Syrians eat herbs to survive
Air raids force thousands to flee
Saleh hospitalized
RIYADH: Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who
has been accused of meddling in his country’s fragile political
transition, was in Saudi Arabia yesterday for treatment, a
Yemeni diplomat said. Saleh arrived for medical tests and
treatment in the Saudi capital on Monday, his party, General
People’s Congress (GPC), said. He spent time recovering in a
Riyadh hospital in June 2011 after an attack on his compound
left him seriously wounded. A Yemeni diplomat confirmed
to AFP that Saleh was in Riyadh and sources in the
GPC said that Saudi Arabia chartered a plane to take him to
the kingdom. Saleh was admitted to hospital, the head of the
GPC parliamentary bloc, Sultan Al-Barakani, said. He did not
elaborate on the nature of the treatment. After 33 years as
Yemen’s head of state, Saleh left power in February 2012 as
part of an agreement for the transition of power in the country,
which also gave him and his family immunity from prosecution.
He last visited Saudi Arabia in November 2011, when
he travelled to Riyadh to sign the transitional agreement in
the presence of Saudi King Abdullah, one of the plan’s main
sponsors. —Agencies
Page 8
other residents, 80-year-old Rajab
observes the life of the makeshift village
in the middle of nowhere. “Under the
tent, you feel the wind, the cold,” says
Rajab, the patriarch of a family of 40
people. “Who can live in these conditions?
Look around you, who can live like
this?” —AFP