India
"I'm feeling bad. I'm thinking about where to sleep."
-- Rubina Ali, the 9-year-old girl who starred in the film "Slumdog Millionaire" as she tried to salvage twisted metal and splintered wood -- all that remained of her bubble-gum pink home after Indian authorities demolished part of a city slum where she lived. Months after their movie swept the Oscars, Ali and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, are both sleeping on hard dirt, wondering when they too might go from slumdog to millionaire, the Associated Press reported. Azharuddin's home was demolished last week. The demolitions took place because the slum houses were in the way of a planned pedestrian overpass, said a railway official who refused to be named. Such demolitions are common in India's chaotic cities. "It's best that I move," said Rubina's father, carpenter Rafiq Qureshi, who built the home seven years ago with USD 2,000, adding that the filmmakers are helping find the family a new home. "They are doing what they promised," he said. Destroyed shanties often resurface and temporary homes had already sprung up around Azhar's house, AP said, where his family tied blankets and blue and yellow tarpaulins to a wooden frame for shelter. Some neighbors had taken out fresh loans from local moneylenders to rebuild, at 20 percent interest a month.
picture from www.entekhabnews.net
Global Development Briefing -- Home Sweet Home
Kuwait
Some great news for women in the conservative Persian Gulf: Kuwaitis elected their first-ever women lawmakers to parliament. Voters in four districts elevated women into parliamentary jobs. It's believed to be the first time women have been elected to serve as lawmakers in any of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies. Kuwaiti women were only granted the right to vote in 2005."It's a victory for Kuwaiti women and a victory for Kuwaiti democracy," lawmaker Aseel Awadhi, a philosophy professor, said after winning a seat. Sunni Islamists lost half their seats mainly to Shi'ite Muslim and liberal candidates in what could signal a power shift. (LA Times)
newly elected women lawmakers
Ireland
Priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions in Ireland, an official report said May 20, but it stopped short of naming the perpetrators. Orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland were places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse said in a five-volume report that took nine years to compile. The Commission blasted successive generations of priests, nuns and Christian Brothers for beating, starving and, in some cases raping, children in Ireland's now defunct network of industrial and reformatory schools from the 1930s onwards. (Reuters)
Japan
Japan's economy contracted by a 15.2 percent annual pace in the first quarter . its sharpest drop on record . as exports plunged, companies slashed production and families cut back on spending, the government said May 20. But the outlook is hopeful. Economists say the world's second-largest economy is most likely past the worst, and some predicted it would grow again in the April-June quarter amid signs of recovering factory output and aggressive stimulus steps by the government. "I think the economy has passed the bottom and the recovery has begun in the current quarter," said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo. (AP)
Haiti
Former US President Bill Clinton has been named by the UN as its special envoy to Haiti, to boost social and economic recovery in the Caribbean island. Clinton said he was honored to accept the position. He said he would work to help Haiti rebuild after last year's tropical storms which killed nearly 800 people and caused USD 1 billion in damage. Clinton helped raise funds for Haiti recently, and is seen as having an enduring interest in the country. Meanwhile, the challenge facing Haiti of achieving stability and economic recovery remains great, especially after a year of damaging setbacks, but the impoverished nation has seen significant progress in the last two years, the head of a UN team that visited the country said May 14. (BBC)
United States
hybrid car, Toyota Prius (picture from www.ecobusinesslinks.com)US President Barack Obama has announced tough targets for new fuel-efficient vehicles in order to cut pollution and lower dependence on oil imports. Describing the move as "historic," Obama said the country's first-ever national standards would reduce vehicle emissions by about a third by 2016. The plan aims to replace overlapping rules on emissions and efficiency set by federal agencies and states. US carmakers and environmental groups have expressed support for the move. Under the proposed standards, manufacturers would be required to begin improving fuel efficiency by 5 percent a year from 2012. (BBC)
Venezuela
Venezuelan lawmakers are studying whether to limit profit margins on consumer goods in a bid to keep down the cost of living, said Simon Escalona, a deputy in President Hugo Chavez's socialist party. A proposal under consideration by the National Assembly.s finance committee would limit profit on .primary needs. items, including rice and sugar, to between 3 percent and 4 percent, Escalona said, with any excess profit taken by the government. .We need to punish speculation,. Escalona said after a committee meeting. .Caracas became the world's most expensive city because some unscrupulous business people want to make more money.. (Bloomberg)
The biggest new displacement in the world until recently was in the Philippines, where 600,000 people fled fighting between the government and rebel groups in the southern region of Mindanao.
troops in Mindanao (BBC)
Now it's Pakistan, with the displacement brought on by fighting in the north-west region between government forces and the Taliban militia. International agency Oxfam said May 20 that it has had to double its aid effort in Pakistan as the number of displaced goes over 2 million, making the crisis the greatest internal displacement of people in the country's history.
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