Israeli military deploy in West Bank
Israeli military said it was deploying reinforcements to the occupied West Bank after US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The military said that upon the conclusion of the general staff’s situation assessment, it was decided that a number of battalions will reinforce in the area of the West Bank, as well as combat intelligence and territorial defence.
At least 31 Palestinians were wounded in clashes in the Gaza Strip and across the occupied West Bank. Islamist group Hamas has already called for a new intifada, or uprising. In a related development, Jibril Rajoub, a senior member of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah has said that US Vice President Mike Pence is not welcome in Palestine during his upcoming regional visit. However, Abbas himself has not made any comments over the visit. On the other hand, the White House has warned that cancelling a planned meeting between Abbas and Pence would be counterproductive.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is deeply concerned by Donald Trump’s decision, the Kremlin said in a statement. In a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Putin called for the Palestinians and Israel to “hold back” and renew negotiations.
On the other hand, facing global condemnation on the issue of recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, the White House has defended the decision of President Donald Trump.White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that US is committed to the peace process as ever, and want to continue to push forward in those conversations and those discussions.
When asked whether any other country is planning to follow the US in this regard, Sanders said, she is not aware of any country’s commitment to follow suit on this.
United States today issued a worldwide caution to its citizens travelling overseas. The State Department’s travel advisory includes South Asia in particular Afghanistan and Pakistan in addition to the Muslim-majority countries.
Britain & EU thrash Brexit
Britain and the European Union reached a historic deal today on the terms of the Brexit divorce. European Commission, President Jean-Claude Juncker said sufficient progress had been made by Britain on separation issues including the Irish border, Britain’s divorce bill, and citizens rights.
Jean-Claude Juncker,Theresa May crack an agreement feel wheels on to the Brexit process. Britain and EU effectively place the Irish border issue at ease.
British Prime Minister Theresa may said EU citizens in the UK will be able to go on living as before and there would be no hard border. She said getting to this point had required give and take from both side. May said she expected a formal agreement to be approved at the summit. The agreement paves the way for EU leaders at a summit on 14th and 15th of this month to open the second phase of Brexit negotiations, covering trade talks and a transition period.
The EU had set a deadline of Sunday after the last talks on Monday broke down when May’s Northern Irish allies objected to terms for future arrangements for the Irish border.
Britain voted in June 2016 to become the first state to leave the EU, after more than four decades of membership, but the talks have been slow moving and often acrimonious so far.
Nepal hit 5.2M quake
Nepal, a moderate intensity earthquake hit Dolakha district today. It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale.
The epicentre of the tremor was about 10 kilometres below the surface and located around 160 kilometres north-east from Kathmandu.
There was no immediate report of any damage or casualty.
Seismologists described it as an aftershock sequence of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Nepal in April 2015, claiming about 9,000 lives and injuring around 22 thousand persons.
Nana Patole resigned from the party & LS
BJP MP from Maharashtra Nana Patole today resigned from the party and the Lok Sabha.
The MP, who represents Bhandara-Gondia seat has sent his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
He has been critical of the state government and denounced the BJP over a host of issues including farmers’ distress.
Patole has been a member of other parties, including the Congress, in the past. He had joined the BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in which he defeated senior NCP leader Praful Patel.
Refugees Looking for Help with Their New Lives in Turkey?
Refugees Looking for Help with Their New Lives in Turkey? There’s an App for That
Ankara – Syrian refugees in Turkey are leading the way pioneering web-based services that provide access to information their community needs to help them set up a new life. They have quickly won support from international companies and organizations, and now their apps and online platforms provide displaced communities with housing and job listings, translations of Turkish laws, advice on getting residence permits, opening a bank account, and more.
Roughly 220,000 of the 3,300,000 Syrians in Turkey live in refugee camps and receive housing and basic needs assistance. The rest live in big cities where it can be difficult to find legal employment to build sustainable livelihoods for them and their families. As a result, many turn to the use of technology especially social media and apps that help them navigate the local context. The convenience and accessibility of online work is also a factor attracting Syrians to the tech sector.
Recognizing the growing trend of displaced persons seeking solutions and employment in the tech industry, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, provides Information Technology and Communication (ITC) skills development through its emergency response programme in provinces on the Syrian border including Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Hatay, and Izmir. To date, IOM’s Entrepreneurship Training and Grants Project has reached 555 displaced persons, enrolling 87 of them in an intensive 90-hour training course and providing select teams with seed funding to create their own startups.
One of these beneficiaries is a young man named Khaled Fattal, a 28-year-old Syrian IT engineer and project coordinator for an organization called Kodra that trains Syrians on how to start their own companies. Khaled participated in an IOM-hosted workshop in Gaziantep on 5-6 December that brought together a diverse group of UN agencies, international organizations, Turkish and Syrian tech companies all working to better integrate displaced persons in the tech sector and create win-win solutions for ITC companies and Syrians looking for jobs.
“Taking part in this workshop made me familiar with companies I did not know about before that provide IT training to Syrian refugees. It’s also provided me with more connections that will help the Syrians Kodra works with to reach more clients,” said Khaled.
Representatives from companies such as Turkcell, Cisco, and NGOs such as Re:Coded and Natakallam, participated in the workshop to discuss how to build stronger working partnerships. Some of discussion focused on how to tackle challenges Syrians face in terms of finding longer-term freelance work, securing jobs in the formal sector, and overcoming barriers such as restrictions on international bank transactions, etc.
Furkan Ozdil, a representative from Turkcell’s Corporate Social Responsibility department, shared another important barrier they are addressing. “Turkcell’s Hello Hope mobile app is helping integrate displaced Syrians through providing Turkish language education, with the aim to help them overcome language barriers and improve their employment prospects,” he said. The app also provides easy access to Turkcell’s Arabic Call Center and provides information on general services available to them.
Michael Newson, IOM’s Senior Labour Mobility and Human Development Specialist who presided over the workshop, said, “It’s crucial we identify the challenges Syrians face in getting jobs and come up with more innovative approaches to help them gain skills and access the labour market. I am happy to see integration between host and refugee communities improving on this topic and our workshop is a good example of this. Half of our participants are from Syrian communities and the other half are Turkish.”
IOM Turkey plans to expand the programme to additional provinces in 2018 and increase the number of entrepreneurship grants for innovative projects.
For more information please contact: Lanna Walsh at IOM Turkey, Tel: +90 312 454 3048, Email: lwalsh@iom.int
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