Merkel expects most Syrian and Iraqi refugees to return home once conflict is over

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she expects most Syrian and Iraqi refugees to return home once the conflict in their home countries has ended. She urged other European countries to offer more help.

Masked gang threatens attacks against asylum seekers in Stockholm – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Dozens of masked, black-clad men believed to belong to neo-Nazi gangs rampaged through the streets of Stockholm on Friday night handing out leaflets threatening to attack migrant street youths “to make a statement”, with police saying two arrests have been made.The incident highlights the growing tensions over immigration in Sweden, a country of 10 million which received 163,000 asylum seekers last year, and comes days after a 22-year-old female worker was stabbed to death in a centre for unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in south-western Sweden.As many as 100 people with their faces covered descended on the Sergels Torg pedestrian square, a popular meeting point for young people, including migrant youths.Police had beefed up their presence in the city centre, deploying anti-riot and helicopter units after learning that extremists were planning “aggression on unaccompanied migrant minors”.By midday police had not received any complaints of assault but one 46-year-old man was arrested after striking a plainclothes officer, police spokesman Towe Hagg said.The leaflets handed out on Friday night, which were confirmed by police as being the same as those posted on Swedish social media, said:”When Swedish streets are no longer safe for ordinary Swedes it is our DUTY to fix the problem … Today, therefore, 200 Swedish men gathered to make a statement against the North African ‘street children’ who are ranging around the capital’s central station.”The police have amply shown that it lacks the means to rein them in and we now see no alternative than for us to mete out the punishment they deserve.”Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman condemned the “racist groups which threaten and spread hate in the public space”, adding: “One must respond strongly.”

Source: Masked gang threatens attacks against asylum seekers in Stockholm – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

‘We Will Not Apologize’: Chronicling the Defiant Women of India – The New York Times

At this point I delved into a world of shocking statistics. Despite India’s prolonged economic expansion, the percentage of women in the work force remains dismally low — lower than in any country in the G-20 other than Saudi Arabia — and it is dropping. More than 70 percent of women say they have to ask permission from a parent, husband or in-law if they want to leave home to visit a health center or to see a friend in the neighborhood.Peepli Khera seemed like a good place to learn why this state of affairs had persisted. Life there was being rearranged in tangible ways by economic growth — specifically, a booming buffalo meat export industry. Last summer, the increase in female employment in the village had erupted into a raw power struggle, with the conservative male caste leaders demanding that the women resign from their jobs. I thought we — the photographer, Andrea Bruce; the interpreter, Ravi Mishra; and I — would merely plant ourselves there and watch them duke it out.This was easier said than done.

Last summer, the increase in female employment in the village had erupted into a raw power struggle, with the conservative male caste leaders demanding that the women resign from their jobs. I thought we — the photographer, Andrea Bruce; the interpreter, Ravi Mishra; and I — would merely plant ourselves there and watch them duke it out.This was easier said than done. In the end we made nine reporting trips to the village, staying until late at night — when the whiskey kicked in — and arriving before dawn. We collected firewood with the women, accompanied them as they went looking for work, and tagged along on court dates. We spent so much time in the village that the people there began to regard us with sincere pity.Then they began to ignore us. This is when the work began to bear fruit. We became professional eavesdroppers. Four months into our reporting, we were in the village for a series of tense, clamorous late-night meetings, in which the elders grudgingly decreed that the women could return to work.That night, the headman, Roshan, pushed us out of the village with his hands pressed against our backs; later he admitted that he had done so because he did not want us to witness violence. We returned to New Delhi and almost immediately learned that a large group of villagers had assaulted Geeta and her friends, also leaving her husband badly injured. We returned to find our subjects utterly changed — unhurt for the most part, but humiliated and shrunken. One teenage girl never forgave us for failing to protect her.

In real life, stories do not have crisp endings, and the battle of Peepli Khera was no different: When we returned this month, it looked as though Geeta and her friends had gotten much of what they had wanted. They had held on to their jobs and avoided begging for forgiveness or paying a fine.

Roshan was very sick, with what seemed to be tuberculosis, and carried out long, expletive-laced conversations with the goddess Kali over his magic necklace. “How are you coming? Are you coming on a horse cart? Are you coming on the wind?” he said to the goddess, then paused to wait for her response. After a moment had passed, he remarked, “They can go to hell.”Geeta, meanwhile, is rebuilding her house a full story above street level so that she can look out of her windows and over her neighbors’ roofs. I started to explain that the article was going to appear in the newspaper, but she was busy collecting a debt for the local women’s lending collective and had no time talk.

“I’ll say to her face, bring her in front of me and I’ll say it to her face — two months have passed and she will have to give the money up,” she was snapping into her cellphone. She waved goodbye as we made our way down the dark lane — every inch the cheerful, ruthless village power broker. That is the last image I had of her.

Source: ‘We Will Not Apologize’: Chronicling the Defiant Women of India – The New York Times

“It’s like I’m on eggshells all the time. Nothing but stress. …

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“It’s like I’m on eggshells all the time. Nothing but stress. I get $696 a month from social security. I could get more if I pretend to be bipolar like some people I know, but they make you take medicine to get your disability benefits. I’m not going to sit around like a zombie to get extra money. When I pay my bills, I have $30 left over. I can feed myself with 59-cent cans of tuna. I tried one of those food pantries but they aren’t even worth the time. I didn’t even know that pints of milk still existed. The bus drivers in the Bronx are cool so they let me ride for free. So that’s good. I can get around. But I can’t afford for anything to go wrong. Some lady is letting me stay in her place for cheap while she lives with her daughter, so I have a place to live. But it’s rent controlled so I’m not even supposed to be there. Every time I go home it’s like four layers of doom. First I’m terrified that my key won’t work. Then I’m terrified that there’s a letter in my mailbox. Then I’m afraid that the elevator won’t work—but that’s just cause I’m a lazy fuck. And then when I finally get to my apartment, I’m afraid there’s a letter under the door. Nothing but stress. I never feel safe. Every time there’s a knock on the door, I think it’s the end.”

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