Word: hussein
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...Iqbal Hussein feels like a marked man. An itinerant laborer from rural Khulna district in Bangladesh, he now scraps for odd jobs in a market town 19 miles (30 km) south of Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur. Last year, he agreed to pay a recruitment agency $2,400 to win a position on the production line of an auto parts manufacturer. But in the wake of the financial crisis, that job is gone, and Hussein, like hundreds of thousands of migrant workers around the world, is stranded far from home, saddled with debts that will take years to repay...
...that's if he manages to find regular work. Viewed with hostility by native Malaysians competing for the same increasingly scarce jobs, Hussein, 25, says he has to keep a low profile to avoid immigration officials looking for illegal immigrants. On March 15, the Malaysian government revoked 60,000 work visas it had granted other Bangladeshis, and officials are now threatening to round up foreigners for deportation. "I am hiding and avoiding places where Bangladeshi people gather," says Hussein. If caught, he risks jail, a heavy fine, and even a whipping before being sent home. (See pictures of migrant workers...
Iraq's civic society has blossomed since the fall of Saddam Hussein, who sought to rigidly repress it. There are some 6,250 registered organizations operating in the country today, as well as a Ministry of State for Civil Society Affairs and civil society committees in provincial governments. But there are still limitations. NGOs cannot merge with one another or form networks without the permission of the government. Furthermore, the participation of non-Iraqis, even in international NGOs, will be limited to 25% of an organization...
...stake is the control of disputed territories. Kurds say they are reclaiming areas like the oil-rich city of Kirkuk that was theirs until Saddam Hussein forcibly removed them from it. Arabs say the land wasn't Kurdish to begin with. In the meantime, Kurdish peshmerga militia forces, which operate independently of Baghdad and answer to Kurdistan's regional government, have steadily pushed south of their United Nations-delineated border into contested zones...
...their real names. Tagged on their standard issue camo shirts, Abdul becomes Mark, or Pablo, or Bill. Ricky chain-smokes and sweats heavily; earlier that day he had shown me the ugly marks on his back and arms that, he said, were scars from electrical wire torture by Saddam Hussein's security forces. They tortured him, he said, because his brother was a member of Kurdish intelligence. He tells me that because of what the Americans did to Saddam, he trusts them. (See why Arab-Kurd animosity threatens Iraq's fragile peace...