Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 8 - 14 March 2001 Issue No.524
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Biking for Baghdad
AN ALGERIAN cyclist arrived in Baghdad on Monday after pedalling about 4,500 kilometres from Algiers to show his solidarity with sanctions-hit Iraq.
Waqdi Mohamed Al-Akhdar, 47, left Algiers on 1 October and crossed Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Jordan to reach Iraq.
"I've made this journey to make my voice heard to the world over the sufferings which the Iraqi people are having to endure because of the embargo," he said. More than 500,000 Iraqi children have reportedly died over the past 10 years due to malnutrition and lack of medicine.
A boost for reforms
POLITICAL reform in Bahrain has received another boost with the formation of the first legal and independent human rights body.
The government has approved the 16-member Bahrain Human Rights Society's mission to increase human rights awareness and investigate individual cases of abuse, Bahraini officials said
The move to establish the organisation came under the directive of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, official sources said.
Bahrain has recently taken bold steps toward greater democracy, which is enshrined in a new national charter which won overwhelming public support in a referendum in mid-February.
Sudan protests airlift
SUDAN has formally protested to the United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) about its secret airlift from civil war frontlines of child soldiers who had been serving with rebels.
An under-secretary at the Foreign Relations Ministry, Awad Al-Kerim Fadalla, described the UNICEF airlift as "an irresponsible act," adding that the government was neither consulted nor informed about the move.
UNICEF announced the evacuation on Tuesday of more than 2,800 child soldiers. It said the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels in southern Sudan had handed over the children, aged between eight and 18, and UNICEF would now try to trace their families. In the meantime, the children were being cared for at UN reception centres in the rebel-held town of Rumbek.
Compiled by Rasha Saad

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