Witness: Abused in Class for Being Sick

Diagnosed with leukemia when he was 5, Fadi (not his real name) was still experiencing side-effects from his treatment when Human Rights Watch researcher Bill Van Esveld went to speak to him and his mum about the abuse he’d suffered in his old school in Lebanon’s Bekaa governorate. Sitting on a sofa their living room, Fadi’s mum, “Rasha,” explained to Van Esveld that Fadi’s medication and treatment made it hard for her son to concentrate. But instead of helping him, the school staff berated him, hurling verbal insults and physically abusing the young boy. One teacher would pull his hair, call him…

Read complete article

~	South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

~	Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times

~	A Hong Kong Facebook group on shop closure strives to survive allegations of inciting discontent

~	Vaping now more common than smoking among young people – and the risks go beyond lung and brain damage

~	Burkina Faso: Army Massacres 223 Villagers

~	Lebanon: Stepped-Up Repression of Syrians

~	Africa’s High Teenage Pregnancy Rate Demands Strong Response

~	Inflation is slowly falling while student debt is climbing: 6 graphs that explain the CPI

~	‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-Australia military alliance

~	If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge surge in production