The root cause leading people to leave their homes should be addressed first, and failing that, refugees should be granted asylum without hesitation, as the ultimate himan right. [Reposted from openDemocracy, June 2003]
In August 2003, a terror attack blasted apart the UN headquarters in Iraq. Inside, Gil Loescher and Arthur Helton were sitting down to interview Sergio Vieira de Mello for their joint openDemocracy column. Adam Ramsay speaks to Gil ten years on.
One year ago, on 19 August 2003, a suicide bomber attacked the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. The results were devastating. Twenty-two people were killed: fifteen United Nations officials – among
In the last days of 2005, leading thinkers and scholars from around the world share their fears, hopes and expectations of 2006. Forty-nine of openDemocracy’s distinguished contributors, from Mariano Aguirre to Slavoj Zizek, Neal Ascherson to Jonathan Zittrain – offer their predictions for the com
“The security situation in Iraq is improving day by day. It is under control now”. These were Paul Bremer’s parting words to Arthur Helton and me at our briefing
Is the Coalition winning the peace in Iraq? This question, on the minds of many American and British officials and citizens, as well as others around the world, has been
KEY POINTS
- Even before the fighting had finished in Iraq, USAID (the American governments aid agency) had awarded $900 million in contracts to private companies to undertake reconstruction
A key component of the People Flow migration proposal of Theo Veenkamp and his associates is that of international transit centres for asylum-seekers, and protection in regions of refugee origin
Even a cursory glance at the headlines of British tabloids these days indicates that the issues of asylum and migration have risen to the top of the national political and
KEY POINTS
- Iraq will be the subject of the largest food assistance programme ever undertaken by the WFP.
- Some $500 million in contributions for food assistance has been
KEY POINTS
- Specialised UN agencies such as UNHCR (refugees), Unicef (children), and WFP (food) have legal mandates that enable them to resume their humanitarian work, as long as security
KEY POINTS
- The Iraq war has generated no significant refugee flows as yet, but large numbers of Kurds (in the north) and Shia (in the south) were already
