refugees

A Palestinian pianist whose image playing the piano among the ruins of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria captivated the world was awarded the 2016 International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Inclusion and the Fight Against Poverty last week.  Ayham Ahmad [...] became famous when a video of him singing and playing the piano surrounded by the rubble of the city went viral earlier in the year.

The Guardian highlighted UN High Commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres, who recently responded to anti-Muslim and anti-refugee rhetoric pushed by Donald Trump and other conservatives, stating that "[t]hose that reject Syrian refugees, and especially if they are Muslim, are the best allies of the propaganda and the recruitment of extremist groups."

Some Americans chose to react to the Paris tragedy with embarrassing displays of xenophobia and bigotry. Others, however, chose compassion instead. A’s baseball player Sean Doolittle and his partner Eireann Dolan invited 17 Syrian refugee families to share in their Thanksgiving meal […] They are also launching a crowd-funding campaign to help sponsor Syrian refugee families who have arrived in Chicago.

Boots on the ground are necessary for defeating them where they now freely organize and operate. The question becomes: Whose boots?

Refugees stranded at the Greece-Macedonia border have stripped down and sewn their lips together to protest against the restrictions placed on their movement. A group of Moroccans, Iranians and Pakistanis, stranded by a policy employed by Balkan states to filter the flow of people passing through the region, blocked rail traffic and demanded passage to Western Europe on Monday.

The British government has faced criticism for its lack of response to the huge numbers of refugees who are heading to Europe in search of safety, yet [...] a small but dedicated group of football fans, who originally met through their love of the Hamburg-based left-wing club, St Pauli, organize various football-related events with refugees and asylum seekers who are already in the UK.

Ahmad  Al Rayyan, a Syrian refugee who moved to Jordan’s capital city 2.5 years ago, is one of the many skaters who frequent 7Hills [...] The park opened last December, but the idea for it, Mohammed Zakaria, co-founder of 7Hills Skatepark says, was always there [...] Working with Make Life Skate Life, a nonprofit that builds skateparks in developing countries, they used an online campaign to fundraise for the park.

The World Bank (WB) Group and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDBG) are ready to provide bonds to increase financing for the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries recovering from war or coping with refugees, WB President Jim Yong Kim said Saturday.
 

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