International Reporting

The entrance to Henna Happiness at 6 Carver Street in Huntington New York.

Trudy Pellegrino is the owner of Henna Happiness for nine years. She started Henna Happiness after 10 years of working art-fairs and wanting to start her own business. Henna is her passion. When speaking about it, she started to tear up, “I don’t know what I would do without henna,” Pellegrino said.

Pellegrino was first introduced to henna art in 1997 at a craft booth at the “New Life Expo” in New York City. “I saw someone at the payphone wearing henna and I was like ‘well that’s cool.’” She tells me that this moment was meant to be, like divine intervention. After seeing the henna she went to find the henna booth, but it wasn’t what she was expecting. “These blonde ladies from Connecticut were doing the henna, pretty funny right?” said Pellegrino.

Pellegrino’s shop is decorated with products including crystals, jewelry and tapestries that she has hand picked from all over the country.

The giant dream catchers come from an artist in Washington DC said Pellegrino.

Pellegrino admits that when she first discovered henna she thought that she had to be Indian to do them. Born and raised in Huntington New York, she pursued henna anyway and now feels like a “messenger for henna” because when she started doing them 20 years ago it “wasn’t as popular as it is today.” She attributes much of the popularization to the Internet and social media such as Facebook and Instagram.

Jordan O’callaghan, 13, is getting her first henna done “just because” on what she called a “girls morning” with her mom.

Most of the clientele here are younger women Pellegrino says. She does traditional wedding henna but also gets a lot of her business from clients seeking temporary scar cover-ups. But there are a wide variety of clients and reasons to get henna, including maternity hennas.

Kim Sudima, 36, gets a maternity henna for her fourth pregnancy. This is the second maternity henna Sudima has gotten. “It’s a way to honor the pregnancy, it only takes an hour or so, and we (her and her friends) go out to dinner afterward – make a day out of it.”

 

 

 

500 measles outbreaks were reported in Europe in January 2017 according to the World Health Organization. This is concerning because there has been steady progress towards elimination of the disease and 500 outbreaks in a month is a big setback. This creates a larger problem because with people traveling to Europe and being exposed to the disease, it could spread and be brought back to people’s home countries. Currently, the most major outbreaks are in Romania and Italy. Italy has seen a sharp increase in cases, with 238 reported in January 2017. The WHO regional director of Europe urged all countries to take urgent measures to prevent the spread of measles.

In the press briefing, only three sentences were said about the outbreaks and then the speaker referred everyone to the WHO website for more information. The speaker simply mentioned that the issue was present, without going into detail. If a reporter were to do a story on the issue, they would need to use other sources. The WHO website was helpful, with much more information and statistics.

http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-releases/2017/measles-outbreaks-across-europe-threaten-progress-towards-elimination

http://www.euronews.com/2017/04/03/romania-and-italy-told-to-take-urgent-action-on-measles-outbreak

 

According to the Boston Globe, an article written by Steve Wembi and Dan Bilefsky, two United Nations officials and Congolese citizens disappeared in a conflict region of Congo. Michael Sharp (American) and Zahida Katalan (Swede) travelled to Kasai on Sunday with a driver and 3 Congolese drivers. The UN stated on Monday that they are doing everything in their power to try and locate them. Officers that are a part of the peacekeeping mission in Congo had travelled to Kasai to inspect possible human rights violations after reports of officials killed about a dozen civilians and children. Recently, there were videos of government soldiers walking on the streets and shooting people.

 
On Tuesday night, Antonio Guterres confirmed the deaths of United Nations researchers. He is pushing the Congolese authorities to do a full investigation of the murder. He also asked the government to search for the four missing Congolese citizens that were with his two colleagues. Michael Sharp and Zahida Katalan bodies were discovered on a shallow grave in central Congo. In the UN trip on Friday, a journalist brought the question of their deaths up. Below are the links to the details about their work, collaborations with locals, their colleague speaking out, and their life in the UN.

Resources:

Boston Globe Article/NY Times

Bloomberg Article:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-28/congo-government-says-2-bodies-may-be-missing-un-researchers

New York Times Article:

In the press briefing on Friday, March 31, there was an announcement about the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s decision to take over the legislative powers of the National Assembly. What’s interesting about this decision is the underlying implication of corruption in the government of Venezuela.

The Supreme Court is mainly composed of supporters of Nicolas Maduro, the current President. The Assembly is mainly composed of the opposition to the President. The National Assembly was also stripped of their immunity as well. This could possibly spiral into a dictator-type government without the actual name because the opposing “powers” will not really have power at all.

The decision was overturned on April 1, but initially it caused concern. The High Comissioner for Human Rights felt that this move would be detrimental to human rights because it goes against the idea of democracy since there wouldn’t be any real checks and balances.

In addition to the political drama, Venezuela is already under a lot of stress because the country has been under economic and social crisis since Maduro has come into power. There has been violence,inflation, and a shortage of goods, causing protests that continue to this day.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Venezuelan_constitutional

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Media.aspx

Megan Guard

In the midst of a growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq the Secretary General of the UN arrived in Baghdad last Thursday (March 31) due to fighting against the Islamic State Group in Mosul. According to Fox News World dozens of civilians were killed by air strikes in Mosul. Since last October more than 350,000 people have fled fighting caused by the start of the Mosul military operation.

Secretary General offered support to Iraq in the fight against the Islamic state and supported continued aid to the 3 million Iraqi’s displaced by the fight, according to ABC news. Guterres met with Iraq’s president, prime minister, and parliament speaker during his trip. Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman reported that,
The Secretary General told the UN Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) “to remain in close contact with the community to ensure that there is sufficient support for those Yazidis who had escaped Daesh control, especially women and girls.”

I think the spokesman comments were newsworthy enough to quote in an article because I think it is important to highlight the depth of the Secretary General’s first meetings in Iraq for civilian relief. “The Secretary-General also appealed for more support for the reconciliation efforts at the community and national levels that will be needed once the liberation of Mosul has been completed,” said Farhan Haq.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/world/2017/03/30/un-secretary-general-starts-official-visit-to-iraq.amp.html

https://www.google.com/amp/abcnews.go.com/amp/International/wireStory/secretary-general-starts-official-visit-iraq-46460903

Last week at a press briefing, Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien spoke about the continuing tensions and fatalities in Syria, saying that “thousands of people have been killed and millions more injured over the six years of fighting in Syria.”

According to an article in the Economic Times by AFP in December of 2016, the war in Syria had killed more than 312,000 people since the war began in March 2011. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Monitor, of the 312,000 , over 90,000 are civilians.

O’Brien says he “remains extremely concerned about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the besieged parts of eastern Ghouta in Rural Damascus, where some 400,000 people are trapped by Government forces.”

Besides the constant casualties and deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that hospitals and health care centers are not in service, stating that “all three public hospitals and 17 public health centres in eastern Ghouta are non-functioning and inaccessible to the population.”

On Twitter, the Syrian Network posted on April 2nd that in March 2017, a total of 1,134 civilians were killed, adding to the disturbingly high number of deaths that have taken place during this war that has now reached its sixth year.

Besides the horrible deaths and suffering of innocent civilians, the United States Embassy also revealed on Twitter on March 31st that the Syrian government is not only standing back and neglecting to help their citizens, but they are also stopping aide from reaching their population:

“Despite calls to allow #HumanitarianAccess, Syrian regime & its backers continue to block aid delivery, including food & medical supplies.”

They also released a statement on March 31 from the United States Mission to the United Nations, giving updates on the situation in Syria.

“Half of all Syrians are displaced from their homes, some living in the ruins of bombed out buildings and other fleeing as refugees to neighboring countries… Despite multiple calls to allow unimpeded humanitarian access to reach these people, the Syrian regime and its backers continue to block aid delivery, including desperately needed food and medical supplies. When it is not attacking civilians with bullets and barrel bombs, the regime uses red tape and bureaucracy to delay and hinder access. As a result, countless numbers of people have died.”

Also in the meeting, officials spoke about the urgency that should be surrounding the topic of aide to Syria, both in aspects of food and medical services, but refuge. Security Council at the UN, High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said “to meet the resettlement challenge, we not only need additional places, but also need to accelerate the implementation of existing pledges.”

 

 

 

On an early Thursday morning, March 30, Venezuelans were alerted to the news that their supreme court has stripped the powers of National Assembly and claim it for their own.

With the National Assembly dissolved and taken over by Supreme Court which is loyal to President, there is no longer political opposition. The Venezuelan government is completely ruled by one political party.

According to The New York Times, the Supreme Court said that the National Assembly were “in a situation of contempt” and during that time, the Supreme Court would step in, to “ensure that parliamentary powers were exercised directly by this chamber, or by the body that the chamber chooses.”

With the motion put into effect, it wasn’t long until the National Assembly and the Venezuelan citizens spoke out against the decision made by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.

According to CNN, Citizens, outraged, are out in the streets protesting while prominent opposition leaders are already calling the government of President Nicolás Maduro “a dictatorship.”

Venezuela’s Supreme Court takes power from Legislature https://t.co/1ocyTl4Gis pic.twitter.com/uJkOIMTPI9

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 30, 2017

National Assembly President Julio Borges said on Thursday, “What this ruling means is that, for the first time, Nicolás Maduro has all the power to enact laws, assign contracts, incur foreign debt and persecute fellow Venezuelans.”

At the United Nations press briefing the day after, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the High Commissioner for Human Rights made it clear that he was against the actions of the Venezuelan supreme court.

“I strongly urge the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision. The separation of powers is essential for democracy to function, and keeping democratic spaces open is essential to ensure human rights are protected,” Zeid said.

Zeid also made sure it was clear that this ruling not only undermines democracy, but it also undermines the human rights of Venezuelan citizens who had voted in the National Assembly themselves.

“Continued restrictions on the freedoms of movement, association, expression and peaceful protest are not only deeply worrying but counter-productive in an extremely polarised country suffering economic and social crises,” Zeid said.

Along with the UN, the U.S. State Department also spoke out against the actions of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, says Reuters. “This rupture of democratic and constitutional norms greatly damages Venezuela’s democratic institutions and denies the Venezuelan people the right to shape their country’s future through their elected representatives,” State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

While addressing the Venezuelan people about the actions of the Supreme Court and their president, Borges showed how much he really thought by ripping up the ruling into multiple pieces.

 

UPDATE:

As of recently the Venezuelan Supreme Court has let go of legislative power and has reinstated it to the National Assembly. This is after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called to annul the ruling to ‘maintain balance of powers.’

Venezuela's Supreme Court reverses ruling to strip Congress of its legislative powers https://t.co/mUKND9HREs pic.twitter.com/91K1fuFN5m

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 1, 2017

Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti, reporting from Cucuta on the Venezuela-Colombia border, said: “Maduro was trying to cast himself as a statesman, trying to resolve a power conflict in the country, but the opposition says he was just rolling back after there were so many protests inside the country and internationally for a decision that was seen as crossing a line and changing the constitution.”

 

One of the topics that the spokesman talked about in the press conference on Monday was the case of the two missing researchers who went missing in DR Congo about two weeks ago. The UN launched an investigation and, the day that we went to the press release their bodieshad been found but were not confirmed to be the two missing experts. It was latter confirmed that they were in fact Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan.

It seems that the two researchers had gone into a central area of the Congo to investigate the fighting between the army and the rebels there. This kind of strategy had been done before by both of the researchers, Sharp being the one with more experience in the area and the investigation. However, it seems that the reason for their death is the fact that their jobs did consist on finding criminal and reporting them to the UN.

The New York Times made a kind of obituary and news piece of the finding of their bodies. The Al Jazeera piece is more like hard news and explains a little about previous conflict in the area, and then Bloomberg seems to have just used an algorhythm to make a very short very to the fact news piece.

In general I did not think that the spokesperson said anything newsworthy to quote, in fact, I would actually mention the fact that he didn’t comment on some questions or just restated what he had previously said. I was suprised at how good he was at avoiding questions.

Junior Martinez

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an order to cancel President Obama climate change regulations, keeping his promise to support the coal industry during his campaign.

 

During the U.N press briefing on Friday March 31^st, U.N Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General stated The head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Patricia Espinosa took note of recent iorder and stated the UNFCCC works with all parties to advance climate action and take forward the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

 

If I was assigned on this story on the climate change future going forward, the U.N is a key source because they are the key players in climate change action throughout the world. I would have asked the Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq if the U.N have conversed with the Trump Administration regarding this issue.

The 20’s are the years where most young adults are trying to find themselves, graduate college and step into the real world. But for 22-year-old Sabina Uddin, the only child born to Bengali immigrants Abush and Shereen Uddin, graduating in two months gives her no excitement. That same excitement that she should have in accomplishing a major life goal is instead shared among her parents who have arranged her marriage, all against her will.

Arranged marriages are a common practice in the Bengali-American community. The bride is usually chosen for the prospective groom by his family and in cases like Uddin’s, a groom may be chosen for a Bengali woman. The parents of prospective brides or grooms set out to find their child’s respective counterparts. Brides are to be of equal social status and lesser age. In Bengali tradition, when it comes to marriage, it should be a match between the two in financial matters, educational level and religious beliefs. But often times, that is not the case.

In many unfortunate cases, Bengali men living in the United States are forced to marry women back in Bangladesh and the fact that the man is a U.S. citizen promises enhanced opportunities for the couple in the eyes of the bride’s family. This promise correlates to greed. For Uddin however, the roles are reversed. “I don’t even know his name. All I know is that he barely has an education. He works in a farm and his family is poor and this marriage is supposed to get him access to citizenship in this country so he can provide for his family back home and eventually bring them here too,” said Uddin.

In Bengali culture, marriage is more of a civil contract rather than a religious sacrament in Islam. “Being married in the Bengali community really means the interests of the families involved are more important rather than the two people who are supposed to spend the rest of their lives together,” said Uddin. Uddin goes on to explain that the bride’s worth is acknowledged when she gives birth—but only if the newborn is a boy.

“Bengali women are taught to act shy around men and their elders. It is engraved in their minds that their job is to cook, clean the house and serve their husbands,” said Uddin. “Marrying this guy will turn me into the typical stereotypical Bengali woman, and since I was old enough to understand the degrading role of women in this culture, I knew I wanted to break away from that stereotype,” added Uddin.

While arranged marriages are still the predominant custom in Bangladesh, this practice is slowly changing in the United States, where dating and individual choices are becoming slightly acceptable. “Recently there have been more and more couples who are both from Bangladesh who are getting married by their own choice of partner,” says Rashiq Gulshang, an Imam who lives in Ozone Park, where many Bengali-Americans live. “But I have yet to see a couple where one person is not Bengali or Muslim. It has been a belief for so long that you should only marry within Islam and with someone who is from Bangladesh. It may be okay for people from other countries and religions to marry outside of their race and religion but in Islam it really is not,” says Gulshang.

“I have so many Bengali friends and cousins who are dating people who are not Muslim or from Bangladesh and they have to hide it from their parents and families,” says Uddin. Many young Bengalis hide their dating life from their families out of fear of disapproval from their families. The promise of a future becomes an issue for couples when one of them is Bengali to do cultural and societal barriers that he or she has to face. “I know so many couples who dated for years and suddenly broke up because the Bengali guy or girl wasn’t ready to tell his or her parents about their non-brown boyfriend or girlfriend. It was like, damn, it’s so sad that race and religion seem to dominate love because of how old-fashioned our parents are,” says Uddin.

Although Gulshang does not necessarily support marriage outside of Islam being that he has lived his whole life through the religion, he believes that this generation of young adults will break the mold and change the culture of marriage in the Bengali-American culture. “The generation that forces arranged marriage is getting old and the newer generations are starting to take over. I already see a change in some aspects of the Bengali culture and I won’t be surprised if one day I am asked to marry two young adults where one of them does not rely his or her faith in Islam,” says Gulshang.