Month: August 2018

Thousands of revelers hurled at least 145 tons of tomatoes at each other Wednesday during the annual “Tomatina” festival in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.

With a firecracker blast marking the start of “La Tomatina” shortly before noon local time, at least six trucks loaded with tomatoes drove through Bunol’s main street, providing red ammunition for the revelers to fight each other for the next hour.

The event takes its origins from a spontaneous food fight that broke out amongst villagers in 1945. It was banned for a time during the 1950s at the height of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, but has gained popularity again since it was reinstated, drawing a huge international crowd.

The Tomatina attracts thousands of participants and onlookers from Spain and around the world to Bunol, one of the country’s prime tomato-producing areas. The Reuters news agency reports that at one time, the festival involved up to 45,000 participants. Now, it has become a ticketed event with only 22,000 available slots, 5,000 of which go to local residents.

 
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Thousands of revelers hurled at least 145 tons of tomatoes at each other Wednesday during the annual “Tomatina” festival in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.

With a firecracker blast marking the start of “La Tomatina” shortly before noon local time, at least six trucks loaded with tomatoes drove through Bunol’s main street, providing red ammunition for the revelers to fight each other for the next hour.

The event takes its origins from a spontaneous food fight that broke out amongst villagers in 1945. It was banned for a time during the 1950s at the height of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, but has gained popularity again since it was reinstated, drawing a huge international crowd.

The Tomatina attracts thousands of participants and onlookers from Spain and around the world to Bunol, one of the country’s prime tomato-producing areas. The Reuters news agency reports that at one time, the festival involved up to 45,000 participants. Now, it has become a ticketed event with only 22,000 available slots, 5,000 of which go to local residents.

 
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German officials are blaming “fake news” peddled on social media sites for helping to stoke rioting this week in the eastern city of Chemnitz, following the murder of a 35-year-old German man, allegedly by asylum-seekers from Iraq and Syria.

“We have to acknowledge that mobilization on the internet was stronger than in the past,” said Michael Kretschmer, the state prime minister of Saxony, where the mainly right-wing violence erupted. The trouble was fueled partially by false claims the now-deceased man, identified as Daniel Hillig, had intervened to protect a woman from the asylum-seekers.

There were also rumors on social media that a second German was killed.

The prime minister said the rioting “was based on xenophobic comments, false information and conspiracy theories.” He added, “It was based on fake news.” Officials say trying to combat false stories adds to the spread of rumors: denials help their dissemination.

A variety of far-right groups spread the false claims in the face of police denials. Hillig was fatally stabbed during a fight in Chemnitz in the early hours of Sunday as a street festival came to a close, according to police. A Syrian and an Iraqi were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

Police say the anti-migrant protests that broke out in the hours after Hillig’s death were initially spontaneous and featured about 800 people. But by late Monday, the crowd had swelled dramatically.

Police were unable to disperse more than 5,000 far-right protesters. Law enforcement deployed water cannon and fired tear gas canisters to little avail. The protesters, some of them self-styled neo-Nazis, retaliated by hurling bottles and pelting police lines with any heavy objects they could get their hands on, say witnesses and officials. The rioting was the worst since 1992, when an anti-migrant mob assaulted and firebombed an apartment block housing refugees and migrants in the city of Rostock.

In a statement, police said two police officers, nine far-right protesters and nine counter-protesters were injured in the recent clashes. About 1,000 counter-protesters gathered Monday, complicating the situation for the 591 police officers deployed.

Germany’s Interior Minister offered Chemnitz federal security assistance in the event clashes are repeated. Chemnitz was a base of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground, which 2000 and 2007 was blamed for several murders, most of them Turkish migrants.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the violence, which included protesters scouring the streets for anyone who appeared to be a foreigner, then assaulting them. “There is video footage of chases, rioting and hatred on the street,” she said. “There is no place for that in our country.”

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said a shocking number of people apparently felt no inhibitions on “hunting down certain groups and calling for vigilante justice.” He told the German press agency the targeting of migrants was becoming common.

Officials acknowledge they were taken aback by the speed with which the anti-migrant protesters were reinforced. Saxony’s interior minister, Roland Wöller, told media that known soccer hooligan groups helped mobilize people from across Germany and transport them to join the street battle. Local officials say about a dozen protesters are under investigation for giving the extended right arm Nazi salute, an illegal act in Germany.

According to the head of the police union GdP, Oliver Malchow, the government has to bear some of the blame for the rioting, pointing to staffing cuts. In an interview with the German newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, he said the police across the country are ill-prepared to confront far-right groups. “The state has failed when is comes to domestic security because it massively reduced staff numbers.” He said at least 20,000 more police are needed.

“When the state is perceived as no longer able to protect citizens, citizens take the law into their own hands and start to rely on self-defense militias and vigilantism,” he warned.

Far-right politicians from the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) partly echoed that criticism, but framed the problem as resting with the migrants. AfD lawmakers, who are being accused of fomenting the riot, say ordinary Germans have a civic duty to stop “knife migration.”

“The problem isn’t the peaceful protests by the brave people of Chemnitz against criminal Muslim migrants, it is the rapes and murders by illegal immigrants, migrant violence,” tweeted AfD lawmaker Udo Hemmelgarn.

As the rioting unfolded, another AfD lawmaker, Markus Frohnmaier, tweeted, “If the state is no longer able to protect its citizens, people go onto the street and protect themselves. It’s quite simple,” he said. “It’s a citizen’s duty today to stop death-dealing ‘knife migration.’ It could have been your father, son or brother,” he added.

Social Democrat lawmaker Burkhard Lischka accused the AfD of taking “every opportunity to enact its violent fantasies of civil war-like conditions on our streets.”

 
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German officials are blaming “fake news” peddled on social media sites for helping to stoke rioting this week in the eastern city of Chemnitz, following the murder of a 35-year-old German man, allegedly by asylum-seekers from Iraq and Syria.

“We have to acknowledge that mobilization on the internet was stronger than in the past,” said Michael Kretschmer, the state prime minister of Saxony, where the mainly right-wing violence erupted. The trouble was fueled partially by false claims the now-deceased man, identified as Daniel Hillig, had intervened to protect a woman from the asylum-seekers.

There were also rumors on social media that a second German was killed.

The prime minister said the rioting “was based on xenophobic comments, false information and conspiracy theories.” He added, “It was based on fake news.” Officials say trying to combat false stories adds to the spread of rumors: denials help their dissemination.

A variety of far-right groups spread the false claims in the face of police denials. Hillig was fatally stabbed during a fight in Chemnitz in the early hours of Sunday as a street festival came to a close, according to police. A Syrian and an Iraqi were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

Police say the anti-migrant protests that broke out in the hours after Hillig’s death were initially spontaneous and featured about 800 people. But by late Monday, the crowd had swelled dramatically.

Police were unable to disperse more than 5,000 far-right protesters. Law enforcement deployed water cannon and fired tear gas canisters to little avail. The protesters, some of them self-styled neo-Nazis, retaliated by hurling bottles and pelting police lines with any heavy objects they could get their hands on, say witnesses and officials. The rioting was the worst since 1992, when an anti-migrant mob assaulted and firebombed an apartment block housing refugees and migrants in the city of Rostock.

In a statement, police said two police officers, nine far-right protesters and nine counter-protesters were injured in the recent clashes. About 1,000 counter-protesters gathered Monday, complicating the situation for the 591 police officers deployed.

Germany’s Interior Minister offered Chemnitz federal security assistance in the event clashes are repeated. Chemnitz was a base of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground, which 2000 and 2007 was blamed for several murders, most of them Turkish migrants.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the violence, which included protesters scouring the streets for anyone who appeared to be a foreigner, then assaulting them. “There is video footage of chases, rioting and hatred on the street,” she said. “There is no place for that in our country.”

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said a shocking number of people apparently felt no inhibitions on “hunting down certain groups and calling for vigilante justice.” He told the German press agency the targeting of migrants was becoming common.

Officials acknowledge they were taken aback by the speed with which the anti-migrant protesters were reinforced. Saxony’s interior minister, Roland Wöller, told media that known soccer hooligan groups helped mobilize people from across Germany and transport them to join the street battle. Local officials say about a dozen protesters are under investigation for giving the extended right arm Nazi salute, an illegal act in Germany.

According to the head of the police union GdP, Oliver Malchow, the government has to bear some of the blame for the rioting, pointing to staffing cuts. In an interview with the German newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, he said the police across the country are ill-prepared to confront far-right groups. “The state has failed when is comes to domestic security because it massively reduced staff numbers.” He said at least 20,000 more police are needed.

“When the state is perceived as no longer able to protect citizens, citizens take the law into their own hands and start to rely on self-defense militias and vigilantism,” he warned.

Far-right politicians from the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) partly echoed that criticism, but framed the problem as resting with the migrants. AfD lawmakers, who are being accused of fomenting the riot, say ordinary Germans have a civic duty to stop “knife migration.”

“The problem isn’t the peaceful protests by the brave people of Chemnitz against criminal Muslim migrants, it is the rapes and murders by illegal immigrants, migrant violence,” tweeted AfD lawmaker Udo Hemmelgarn.

As the rioting unfolded, another AfD lawmaker, Markus Frohnmaier, tweeted, “If the state is no longer able to protect its citizens, people go onto the street and protect themselves. It’s quite simple,” he said. “It’s a citizen’s duty today to stop death-dealing ‘knife migration.’ It could have been your father, son or brother,” he added.

Social Democrat lawmaker Burkhard Lischka accused the AfD of taking “every opportunity to enact its violent fantasies of civil war-like conditions on our streets.”

 
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The U.N. refugee agency reports 4 million refugee children are missing out on an education, a situation that bodes ill for their future and for the well-being of the communities in which they live. The UNHCR has launched a new report “Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis.”

The U.N. refugee agency reports enrollment of refugee children in school is not keeping pace with the growing refugee population, which has reached unprecedented levels.  Globally, the UNHCR cares for nearly 20 million refugees, and more than one-half are children.  

This means the number of refugee children needing to go to school also has risen. But this is not happening.

UNHCR Senior Education Advisor Ita Sheehy says 61 percent of refugee children are attending primary school, dropping dramatically to 23 percent for secondary school. This, she underscores, is compared with 84 percent of children globally.

“So, if we put those figures together, we know that a refugee child is five times more likely than any other child not to be in school,” said Sheehy. “This gets much worse as we get up to higher education levels, and we are again seeing that the percentage of one percent of refugees going to university has not increased in the past year despite all of the efforts.” 

The report notes 92 percent of all refugees are hosted in developing countries. It says this poses problems because these poor countries have little money to provide quality education for their own children, let alone for refugee children.

The UNHRC is urging host countries to enroll refugee children in their national school systems. It says putting these two groups together will result in a better educational result rather than keeping them in separate, parallel systems.

The agency is calling on the international community to invest in refugee children’s education. At the same time, it urges donors to provide sustained financial support to improve the school systems in the developing host countries.

 
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The U.N. refugee agency reports 4 million refugee children are missing out on an education, a situation that bodes ill for their future and for the well-being of the communities in which they live. The UNHCR has launched a new report “Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis.”

The U.N. refugee agency reports enrollment of refugee children in school is not keeping pace with the growing refugee population, which has reached unprecedented levels.  Globally, the UNHCR cares for nearly 20 million refugees, and more than one-half are children.  

This means the number of refugee children needing to go to school also has risen. But this is not happening.

UNHCR Senior Education Advisor Ita Sheehy says 61 percent of refugee children are attending primary school, dropping dramatically to 23 percent for secondary school. This, she underscores, is compared with 84 percent of children globally.

“So, if we put those figures together, we know that a refugee child is five times more likely than any other child not to be in school,” said Sheehy. “This gets much worse as we get up to higher education levels, and we are again seeing that the percentage of one percent of refugees going to university has not increased in the past year despite all of the efforts.” 

The report notes 92 percent of all refugees are hosted in developing countries. It says this poses problems because these poor countries have little money to provide quality education for their own children, let alone for refugee children.

The UNHRC is urging host countries to enroll refugee children in their national school systems. It says putting these two groups together will result in a better educational result rather than keeping them in separate, parallel systems.

The agency is calling on the international community to invest in refugee children’s education. At the same time, it urges donors to provide sustained financial support to improve the school systems in the developing host countries.

 
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