Brains Like a Shoe

Just a few items of note…

First, the problems in Yemen have escalated quickly.  Waq al Waq reports:

The news that Saudi Arabia is bombing targets inside Yemen and is becoming much more intimately involved in the Huthi conflict is sparking, as it should, a great deal of speculation and numerous stories.

The Yemeni government is denying that Saudi Arabia is bombing targets in Yemen, although I have my doubts. The border is demarcated, but the lines tend to be drawn in sand and I think the potential for Saudi bombs straying across the border whether intentionally or not is high.

This is, as numerous people suspect, a major escalation in the war. What Saudi Arabia will do is still an open question, but sending ground troops across the border would be, in my opinion, a huge mistake.

Second, Michelle at Change.org hits the perfect note on what at first seems like a great story…

Did the UK just endorse racial profiling of refugees?

According to a decision announced on Tuesday by Britain’s Interior Ministry, all “non-Arab” Darfuri asylum-seekers will be allowed to remain in the country, contingent upon periodic reviews of the situation in Sudan:

“All non-Arab Darfuris, regardless of their political or other affiliations, are at real risk of persecution in Darfur and internal relocation elsewhere in Sudan is not currently to be relied upon,” the Interior Ministry’s UK Border Agency concluded in its operational guidance note.

Yes, non-Arab Darfuris were the targets of Sudan’s genocidal violence, and return from abroad is a very dangerous prospect. But while the situation in Darfur is perilous for those groups singled out by the government, the human rights situation is pretty crummy (in my professional opinion) across the entire country — for Arabs and non-Arabs and mixed races and foreigners and really anyone who happens to be there.

I’m certainly no lawyer, but I thought that an individual’s asylum claim should be evaluated on the specific merits of his/her case. While its laudable for the British government to recognize the need to ensure of asylum to Darfuris, that protection should be extended to all Sudanese fleeing abuse in their home country.

Also read her piece about the shameless new movie, entitled Darfur:

The man “widely considered to be the worst working director today” + Darfur = Disaster.

You don’t even need to see the full film to tell — here’s all you need to know: White journalists in a gun battle with the Janjaweed.

Finally, my friend Maggie at ENOUGH has a great post from south Sudan about how the voter registration process is going.  It just started on November 1.