Top Stories from the Development and Aid World News Service– DAWNS Digest.
Bahrain Marks 1 Year Anniversary Since #Feb14 Uprising
The uprising in Bahrain shows that with just the right amount of suppression, an autocracy can suppress a an Arab Spring movement without too much global outcry. Today in Bahrain demonstrators took to the streets and were predictably suppressed. “Thousands of protesters who had been attending a legal antigovernment rally marched Monday afternoon down a highway to the capital, Manama, headed for Pearl Roundabout, the cradle of Bahrain’s uprising last year. Protesters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces, who responded with tear gas and then birdshot, according to a witness and the opposition. Violence also broke out in predominantly Shiite districts in the tiny Gulf kingdom, whose monarchs are members of the Sunni minority. In the village of Sanabis, a witness said, police fired tear gas to disperse youths…Monday’s escalation underscores how little has changed since Feb. 14, 2011, when ndemonstrators, inspired by protests elsewhere in the Arab world, called for better jobs and more rights.” (WSJ http://on.wsj.com/A7OcSx)
Madagascar Braces for Huge Cyclone
News to watch today: A category four tropical storm, Cyclone Giovanna, is expected to make landfall on Madagascar today. It looks like it is heading straight for some highly populated areas of the country. “If Giovanna lives up to the category four predictions and hits south of the large coastal port of Toamasina, as predicted, it has the potential to cause massive destruction. Not since Cyclone Indlala in 2007 or perhaps even farther back in time have we had a cyclone with this capacity for large-scale damage. We are calling on all parties to take this storm extremely seriously,” John Uniack Davis, country director for CARE. (IRIN http://bit.ly/ypODQZ)
Big Meeting of Aid Agencies to Address the Food Crisis in Sahel
The World Food Program is hosting a big meeting of aid agencies and donors at its Rome headquarters on Wednesday to coordinate a response to the looming food crisis in the Sahel. “The event will be attended by: by the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva; the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),Kanayo F. Nwanze; the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos; the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark; the European Union’s Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva; the Assistant Administrator of USAID, Nancy Lindborg. (WFP http://bit.ly/z6D29n)