Last June, Iraqi forces suffered a humiliating defeat amid the IS group’s lightning advance. The Kurdish fighters then filled the vacuum in northern Iraq, seeing a chance to spread out from their semi-autonomous region and claim long-disputed territories in their bid for full independence. Their commanders disappeared, pleas for more ammunition went unanswered and in some cases, soldiers stripped off their uniforms and ran.
The Refugee Convention does not cover people displaced across borders by environmental degradation or climate-related disasters, and more recent initiatives to address the problem are non-binding.
In this Wednesday, May 27, 2015 photo, Salim Ahmed, a former Iraqi Army member, holds the “repentance card” he received from the Islamic State group in June 2014 shortly after the militants took over his home village of Eski Mosul in northern Iraq. The document is part of the apparatus of control the Islamic State group has constructed across its self-declared “caliphate,” the territory it conquered in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)
The cigarettes come in through Syria, where movement in and out of Turkey and non-IS areas is easier. Saad Eidou, 25, a displaced Iraqi from the town of Sinjar near the Syrian border, said that like everyone else, militants smoke in private.
Tuvalu Foreign Minister Simon Kofe withdrew from the conference after China challenged the accreditation of three Taiwanese delegates included in Tuvalu’s delegation, Radio New Zealand reported on Monday.
But after the minor surgery, she developed menopause-like symptoms from post-tubal ligation syndrome”.
Getting her tubes tied – a procedure called a tubal ligation – seemed like the best contraceptive for Stacey Underwood, 36 (pictured) after she was done having children. ‘It is like my body went into shock,’ she told.
Tuvalu, which gained independence from Great Britain in 1978 but was visited by the Queen and Prince Philip in 1982, isn’t the only Pacific island running out of fresh water after six months of low rainfall.
Tuvalu’s prime minister Enele Sopoaga has welcomed the goodwill behind the funding but said he hoped it wouldn’t undermine what was needed in global climate finance through the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund.
Other initiatives for managing climate and disaster risk also were discussed, including a new business-led forum to increase access to insurance in the most vulnerable countries.
The start of a tense day of negotiations over climate change took a dramatic turn when Mr Sopoaga’s brother got into difficulty and was dragged unconscious from the ocean during the traditional fishing event on Thursday.
Shipowners have become less wary of piracy after a long period of calm off the Horn of Africa, experts say, and some have started using a route known as the Socotra Gap, between Somalia and Socotra Island, to save time and costs.
The route is considered riskier than others.