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More news →Hrithik Roshan cheers for Olympic refugee participants
Superstar Hrithik Roshan finds it laudable that a team made up of refugees has been allowed to compete at the Rio Olympics. He has extended his support to swimmer Yusra Mardini. On Wednesday night, he tweeted: "It's incredibly cool to have included displaced sportsmen in Olympics... This time as refugee Olympic team. They don't have a nation. Let's all cheer for them." "I cheer for Yusra Mardini, a real life hero who saved lives through her swimming and is part of refugee Olympic athletes team," added the "Mohenjo Daro" actor. Mardini competed for the 100 meter butterfly and freestyle heats on Wednesday.
All about refugees
Quite appropriate to the title, the shooting for Jeeva's Rameshwaram is on the areas in and around Rameshwaram. The young hero plays a Lankan refugee in the movie, who falls in love with a daughter (Bhavana) of a rich landlord in the Lankan border. The movie is directed by Selvam, who has mastered the art of film-making working with Bharathiraja and Pavithran. Throwing light on the movie, Selvam says, 'It is no ordinary film. It is the travails of a youth who had come across several struggles in his life. It is a different film which portrays the emotions. It is about a refugee, who comes from Jaffna in Lanka to India for survival. He is desperate to get back to his native. But enters Bhavana in his life and the future course of events changes his life'. 'It is not a regular commercial entertainer with a couple of fights and crass comedy. Jeeva has performed tough roles before. Keeping it in mind, we have enough opportunities for him to showcase his acting skills. I am confident that he would do the job well. Though it is a movie on Lankan refugees, it is non-political', adds Selvam.
130,000 Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS seek refuge in Turkey
Some 130,000 Kurdish refugees fleeing Islamic militants have crossed the border from Syria into Turkey in the past four days, Turkey's deputy prime minister said Monday as fighting raged close to Turkey's southern border. The minister, Numan Kurtulmus, warned that Turkey was facing "a refugee wave that can be expressed by hundreds of thousands." "This is not a natural disaster... what we are faced with is a man-made disaster," Kurtulmus said of the surge of mostly women, children and the elderly that started late Thursday. The situation has raised tensions between Turkish authorities and Kurds, who claim the government is hampering their efforts to help their brethren in Syria by refusing to let Turkish Kurds cross into Syria. New clashes Monday erupted along the border near the town of Suruc, with Turkish police firing tear gas and water cannons to disperse Kurds protesting the government or demanding to reach Syria. The conflict in Syria had already pushed more than a million people over the border since it began in March 2011. Refugees on Sunday reported atrocities by Islamic fighters that included stonings, beheadings and the torching of homes. "We don't know how many more villages may be raided, how many more people may be forced to seek refuge," Kurtulmus said. "An uncontrollable force at the other side of the border is attacking civilians." Suruc itself was flooded with refugees and armored military vehicles. The al Qaeda breakaway group -- which says it has established an Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by a harsh version of Islamic law in territory it captured straddling the Syria-Iraq border -- has recently advanced into the Kurdish regions of Syria that border Turkey. Turkey had previously been reluctant to take part in international efforts against the group, citing the safety of 49 citizens taken hostage in June when the Islamic group overran the Iraqi city of Mosul. But on Saturday, Turkey secured the hostages' release but would not say how. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied paying a ransom but has been vague on whether there was a prisoner swap. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the United States now expects Turkey to step up in the fight against the militants. Fighting raged Monday between Kurdish fighters and the militants near the northern Syrian city of Kobani, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Parts of the city are within a mile of the Turkish border. The Observatory said the militants have lost at least 21 fighters since Sunday night, most of them on the southern outskirts of Kobani. Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, told The Associated Press the situation on the ground "is better than before." He said the main Kurdish force in Syria, the People's Protection Units, had pushed Islamic State fighters 6 miles away from previous positions east of Kobani. "We will fight until the last gunman in Kobani," Khalil said.
Where are the Syrian refugees now?
As Congress and America's governors debate whether to allow in more Syrian refugees, more than 2,000 already have been admitted since the start of the 2011 Syrian civil war. A spotlight may now be put on the status of those refugees, and the process for vetting them, as lawmakers and governors raise security concerns in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. House Speaker Paul Ryan called Tuesday for a "pause" in Syrian refugees coming to the U.S., and assembled a task force to bring legislation to a vote as soon as this week. "This is a moment where it's better to be safe than to be sorry," Ryan said. As it stands, a handful of states have absorbed the bulk of the Syrian refugee population: California, Texas, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois. Of those states, governors in all but California have declared they will try to stop Syrian refugees from settling in their states going forward -- though the federal government, under a 1980 law, has the ability to admit and resettle refugees using federal funds, while taking state input under consideration. Together, just those five states already have accepted hundreds. According to the State Department's Refugee Processing Center, since January 2012, California has received 251 Syrian refugees; Texas has received 242; Michigan has received 206; Arizona has received 168; and Illinois has received 157. At the same time, some other states have received none at all this year, including Alabama, Maine, Iowa and New Mexico. The process for taking in refugees can be extensive. As of September, a State Department official estimated it takes between 18 and 24 months to process such an application. Before a refugee can even be vetted, he or she first needs to be declared eligible -- a decision typically made by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. high commissioner has an office in Damascus; if the office recommends resettlement, the application is processed at one of nine Resettlement Support Centers around the world. From there, a refugee would have to undergo a security clearance check, an in-person interview, a medical screening and other steps. According to officials, this process involves several agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center. All this is done before a refugee can set foot on American soil. The in-person interviews are conducted by U.S. officers who travel to where the refugees are located to speak to them. According to one State Department official, as of September there was a team of 17 people conducting interviews of Syrians and others in Istanbul. After the vetting is conducted overseas, the refugees come into the U.S. at different, pre-determined points of entry. The State Department works with other agencies to determine where to resettle a refugee. Citing this existing process, Obama administration officials this week have defended the plan to bring 10,000 more Syrian refugees into the U.S. over the next year. But congressional lawmakers and governors want the administration to at least pause the program to make sure the vetting process is as tight as possible. "We need to make sure that every person stepping onto American soil is exactly who he says he is, and right now we don't have the necessary verification safeguards in place to make that determination, not by a long shot," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said in a statement on Tuesday, introducing legislation to stop the admission of Syrian refugees until additional safeguards are in place. The debate has escalated into a war of words at the federal and state level. President Obama on Monday scolded lawmakers who would call for a religious test for refugee applicants. And after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced his opposition to admitting Syrian refugees -- even orphaned children -- New Jersey Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, said the governor has forgotten America's ideals. "We absolutely must have a thorough screening and vetting process for all refugees, but we also must be better than the governor's xenophobia. We especially shouldn't be targeting orphaned preschoolers, toddlers and babies, lest we see more drowned bodies washing ashore," Prieto said in a statement. "Orphaned children pose no threat to our nation."
German vice-chancellor to visit refugee shelter at center of weekend far-right riots
BERLIN – Germany's vice-chancellor is visiting a refugee shelter that was attacked by far-right protesters over the weekend. Sigmar Gabriel is meeting Monday with local officials at the repurposed hardware store in Heidenau, south of Dresden. Police say more than 30 officers have been injured trying to protect the site from neo-Nazi rioters since Friday. On Sunday, left-wing protesters clashed with neo-Nazis and police in Heidenau. Attacks against refugees and asylum centers in Germany have increased sharply over the past year. Officials say there were some 202 such attacks in the first six months of 2015, as many as during the whole previous year. Police in southwestern Germany said Monday they are investigating a possible arson attack against an empty building destined as a refugee in the town of Weissach im Tal.
Six Jordanian Guards Killed Near Refugee Camp
A vehicle laden with explosives kills six guards near the Rakban camp in eastern Jordan, which is home to 50,000 Syrian refugees. Six Jordanian guards have been killed and another 14 wounded in a car bomb attack at the Jordan-Syria border. The attack took place near the Rakban camp for Syrian refugees in a remote area of eastern Jordan around 5.30am local time (2.30am GMT). A Jordanian official said the attack was launched from the Syrian side of the border. The vehicle exploded a few hundred metres from the camp, which is home to more than 50,000 people who have fled the Syrian civil war. The Jordanian army said several other vehicles used in the attack were destroyed. Earlier this month five people, including three Jordanian intelligence officers, were killed in an attack on a security office near the capital Amman. Jordan has kept tight control of its frontier with Syria since the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011. The Rakban crossing is a military zone far from any inhabited area, and includes a two-mile stretch of embankments built a decade ago to combat smuggling. The rest of the border is heavily guarded by patrols and drones. Jordan is an ally of the United States and is participating in the campaign against Islamic State. The country has received large amounts of foreign aid to help cope with waves of refugees fleeing Syria, but has drawn criticism over conditions in the Rakban camp. Earlier waves of refugees had an easier time reaching Jordan, with some walking just a few hundred metres to cross into the country. Jordan closed those border crossings in 2013. The United Nations refugee agency said late last year Jordan should accept more refugees and move them to camps closer to Amman. But Jordan, which has already accepted more than 600,000 UN-registered refugees, has resisted, arguing that IS militants may have infiltrated the refugees’ ranks.