The Other Side of Surge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6OthaeoxCM

Watch part two 

The US government published a report claiming that violence is falling in Baghdad and that living conditions are improving. But it is now a city divided by miles of walls separating Sunni and Shia ghettos.

Through a hazardous trip to Baghdad, Iraqi filmmaker and photographer Ghaith Abdul-Ahad shows us the other side of the surge.

In an orphanage and a graveyard, parents and children mourn their much-loved and blame the Americans for bringing chaos to Baghdad.

A stranger in his homeland, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad portrays a city where the dead live through the anger and desperation of its population.

Omanisation

The government wants 70 per cent of workers in the tourism sector to be Omani by 2012

Faced with rising unemployment among an overwhelmingly young workforce, the government has adopted a policy of “Omanisation” designed to reduce the number of expatriates working in the sultanate.

This has led to the imposition of company-level quotas on foreign staff in some industries; some job titles are reserved solely for Omanis.

New Omanisation targets have been unveiled and although these – like their predecessors – are not being fully enforced, they can pose a risk for business and complicate hiring and firing decisions.

The supply of well educated local workers is ample but skill levels in some areas fall short of foreign requirements. Abdel-Karim Sekkar reports.

The Flowering Desert

Successful reforestation plans have encouraged the country’s politicians to fight desertification

Many of the African refugees refused entry into Europe fall into the category of environmental migrants. They are forced to leave their homes because the spreading deserts are destroying their livelihood.

Over the last couple of years Swiss doctor Felix Kuechler has set up a new project in the Sahel zone of the Sahara desert which is giving encouraging results.

People & Power travels to the north of Burkina Faso and meets those who, using Dr. Kuechler’s method, are turning desert back into grassland.

This episode of People & Power aired from Sunday, May 4, 2008.