reports-studies - INTERNATIONAL AGENCY FOR JOURNALISM AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

Reports: Bedrock City Arizona, the Flintstones-themed park, closes after 40 years

Bedrock City Arizona, the Flintstones'-themed attraction that welcomed (or pleasantly sidetracked) travelers on their way to the Grand Canyon's South Rim for more than 40 years, has closed, according to multiple media reports. ...

Getting Smart about America's Middle East Policy

Deeply appreciate the generosity of Elliott Abrams, Martin Kramer, and Steven Cook in providing thoughtful responses to “The Strategy Washington Is Pursuing in the Middle East Is the Only Strategy Worth Pursuing.” I’ll offer my reactions to their arguments—with each of which I respectfully disagree—one by one. ...

World’s human rights watchdog spotlights Afghanistan, Yemen and 12 others

The United Nation Human Rights Council (HRC) kicked off its Universal Periodic Review, or UPR, on Monday at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to examine the human rights situation in 14 countries, including Afghanistan and Yemen. ...

Under the mantle of the national army in Yemen, corruption comes back to support extremism and terrorism, Report

...

UEFA report: European football profitable but gap between super-clubs and rest remains

Each year, for the past decade, UEFA have released their "Benchmarking Report," a sort of "State of the Game" across the top flights of every European league. As ever, it's filled with interesting nuggets and takes time to sift through. Here's a Q&A to help make sense of it. ...

Yemen: Women 'snatched from cafes and tortured in secret prisons' by Houthi rebels

Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has rounded up, forcibly disappeared and tortured dozens of women, while blackmailing their families, rights groups have revealed, as violence soars in the war-ravaged country despite peace talks under way in Jordan. Over the past few months Houthis have begun to stage mass arrests of women, on charges of prostitution and collaboration with the Saudi-led coalition they are fighting, according to Nabil Fadel, the head of Sanaa-based Yemen Organisation for Combating Human Trafficking. Mr Fadel told the Associated Press said that women were then sent to secret detentions in villas across the rebel-held capital.The anti-trafficking group said it had obtained new information showing that the rebels were carrying out atrocities such as “abuse, torture, and forced disappearances of women and girls in secret and illegal prisons”. A Yemeni human rights lawyer working on the issue said women were taken from cafes and parks over the past months, and their families had begun searching for their missing daughters.An AP investigation revealed last month that thousands of Yemenis have been imprisoned by the Iran-backed Houthis during the four years of the war that has ripped the country apart and sparked the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis. Within Houthi jails inmates were allegedly subject to extreme torture, including being strung by their wrists or genitals for weeks at a time, and doused in acid or melted plastic. One survivor, Monir al-Shariq was so horrifically tortured he was left unable to speak. So far most of the detainees are believed to men. However, the anti-trafficking organisation said this week that mass arrests of women started after the Houthi appointment a year ago of Sultan Zabin as head of the Sanaa criminal investigation division.The rebel-run Interior Ministry vehemently denied the allegations, calling them rumours from the “mouthpieces of the mercenaries” that are “tarnishing the image of security apparatus”. It also denied the existence of secret prisons and illegal and arbitrary detentions and vowed to prosecute those behind the reports.The news of the targeting of women comes as representatives of the warring factions in Yemen meet in Jordan to work on implementing a prisoner-swap agreed to during the last round of talks, in Sweden in December. The talks are also focused around the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, the main gateway for over 80 percent of Yemen’s supplies of food and medicines. Under a ceasefire deal, both sides agreed to withdraw from the city and hand it over to local government together with UN monitors. On Thursday, unknown gunmen fired at the convoy of the head of a UN mission charged monitoring the truce as the officials left a key meeting. Retired Dutch Major General Patrick Cammaert was not in the vehicle that was hit and he and his team returned to their base safely, according to Stephane Dujarric, the UN’s spokesman. ...

News Daily: Medicines shortage, Prince Philip crash and Bercow peerage

  'Unconscious' stockpilingMany common medicines are becoming hard to get hold of, leaving patients complaining of delays. Widely-used painkillers, anti-depressants and blood pressure drugs are among 80 on the "shortage of supply" list for England - up from 45 in October - and pharmacists say they're having to pay "vastly increased" prices for them. Some are sending patients back to their GPs to ask for a different medicine or dosage - others are giving patients some of their prescription and sending them away with an IOU note for the rest. ...

Kenya attack: Who are the Nairobi victims?

At least 21 people are known to have died when Islamist al-Shabab militants stormed a luxury hotel compound in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. A 19-hour siege of the DusitD2 hotel and business complex on Tuesday ended with five attackers "eliminated", President Uhuru Kenyatta said. ...

Migrant caravan: Hundreds of Hondurans set off on new trek

Hundreds of Hondurans have set off on a new migrant caravan towards the United States. ...

Sturgeon refers herself to standards panel over Salmond caseAlps snow: Avalanche kills three skiers near Lech, Austria

  Three men have been killed in an avalanche near the Austrian ski resort of Lech am Arlberg, local police say. ...

Married In The Fifth Grade In Yemen, UNICEF

When 15-year-old Sabrin was a fifth grader, her father accepted $900 in dowry money from a man who wanted to marry her. © UNICEF ...

Universal credit: Single mums win High Court battle

Four working single mothers have won a High Court challenge over the government's universal credit scheme. ...

UAE and Oman to be ‘fastest growing economies in GCC’

  The UAE and Oman will be the Gulf region’s fastest growing economies in 2019, according to a new report by the Institute of International Finance (IIF). ...

GCC fixed income market takes a breather in 2018

KUWAIT: After three consecutive years of growth and record issuances in 2017, the GCC fixed income primary market took a breather, as bonds and sukuk issuances declined 14.1 percent in 2018 to reach $105.9 billion. ...

Report: US 2018 CO2 emissions saw biggest spike in years

A new report has found that US carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4% in 2018 after three years of decline. ...

Brexit, elections and RHI: Key dates for the 2019 diary.

If you thought 2018 was a year that packed plenty of political punches, brace for impact because 2019 isn't likely to be much calmer.Oh, and it's not just because of Brexit either. ...

NHS 10-year plan: Labour attacks Theresa May's proposals.

Theresa May's 10-year plan for the NHS lacks both the staffing and funding to succeed, Labour has said. ...

Tags