Earthquake strikes eastern Turkey

An earthquake of 6.0 magnitude has rocked eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people, and injuring 100 others.

The quake struck at 04:32am local time (02:32 GMT) on Monday, centred on the village of Basyurt in Elazig province, about 550km east of Ankara, the country's capital, and caught many people in their sleep.

The quake affected six villages near the town of Kovancilar, toppling stone or mud-brick homes and minarets of mosques, officials said.

The worst-hit area was the village of Okcular where some 17 people were reported killed.

Aftershocks

CNN-Turk television said rescue teams dispatched to the area were working to save six people trapped under rubble.

The quake was followed by more than 30 aftershocks, the strongest measuring 4.1, according to Istanbul's Kandilli Observatory seismology centre.

Al Jazeera's Serpil Karacan, reporting from Turkey, said the military was "involved in rescue efforts" and that it was in control of some of the roads.

"The population [in the affected area] is not high and for that reason the death toll may not be as high as it would have been in the city centre.

"We've had a very wet winter and in this [affected] place there are mud houses and their ceilings are very heavy. They have been taking a lot of water this year and that may have contributed to the damage we see," she said.

At least four of the victims were young sisters, according to the private Dogan news agency.

Nursel Sengezer, a reporter for the agency in Karakocan, said two more children were buried under rubble in the village of Yukari Kanatli.

Villages 'flattened'

"Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place," Yadin Apaydin, an administrator for the village of Yukari Kanatli, said.

Authorities blocked access to Okcular village, to facilitate the entry and exit of ambulances and rescue teams on the village's narrow roads.

"The village is totally flattened," Hasan Demirdag, Okcular's administrator, told NTV television.

The quake was felt in neighbouring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir where residents fled to the streets in panic and spent the night outdoors.

The epicentre was in eastern Turkey, 45km (28 miles) west of the town of Bingol, and 625km (388 miles) east of Ankara.

Deadly earthquakes are frequent in Turkey,which is crossed by several active fault-lines.

Two powerful quakes in the heavily populated northwest claimed about 20,000 lives in August and November 1999.

In 2003, an earthquake measuring 6.4 brought down a school dormitory in the neighbouring province of Bingol province, killing 83 children

In 2007, an earthquake measuring 5.7 damaged buildings in Elazig.

Obama in final healthcare bill push

The US president has criticised health insurance companies in the country for raising their premiums and denying coverage to the critically ill.

Addressing a rally in Philadelphia on Monday, Barack Obama called on the Democratic Party to back his healthcare bill, accusing some companies of dropping "more people's coverage when they're sick and need it most".

"The other day, on a conference call organised by Goldman Sachs, an insurance broker told Wall Street investors that [health] insurance companies know they will lose customers if they keep raising premiums," Obama said.

"But since there's so little competition in the insurance industry, they're OK with people being priced out of health insurance because they'll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have.

"They will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it."

Expanding coverage

Obama's Democratic supporters are stepping up the pressure on both the Congress and Senate to pass a delayed healthcare overhaul.

The propose change would reshape the $2.5 trillion insurance industry by cutting costs, regulating insurers and expanding coverage to tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance at all.

Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane said the Republicans had been able to split the Democrats over the bill.

"One of the key issues that is facing Democrats right now is the issue of a government funding of abortion

"That is such a minor provision, I think it's only 10 pages when you look at this 2,000-page bill. But the Republicans have been able to target this and there are about a dozen Democrats in the House who've said 'if we have to adopt the Senate language on abortion, we're not gonna vote for it'.

"And in this case, every single vote counts."

Congress has passed two versions of the proposed health reform, but efforts to merge the two and send a final version for Obama to sign into law collapsed in January.

The collapse followed a special election in Massachusetts, which cost the Democrats the crucial 60th Senate vote needed to overcome Republican procedural hurdles.

But Democrats are planning to use a special procedure that would allow them to pass the bill with a simple majority.

“Colonizing” African Land For Food

Facing food shortages, rich countries are turning to poor African countries to cultivate vast swatches of fertile land to guarantee supplies for own peoples, a move seen as a new brand of colonization.

"The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries,” Nyikaw Ochalla, an Ethiopian from the Gambella region, told the Guardian on Sunday, March 7.

“There is no consultation with the indigenous population."

Addis Ababa has granted at least three million hectares of its most fertile land to foreign investors to export food for their own populations.

"The deals are done secretly,” said Ochalla, who is now living in Britain but in regular contact with farmers in his region.

“The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands."

Since 2007, Ethiopia, one of the hungriest countries in the world, has approved 815 agricultural projects for foreigners.

This is not only confined to Ethiopia, but also to many African countries, such as Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Malawi.

"All the land round my family village of Illia has been taken over and is being cleared,” said Ochalla.

“People now have to work for an Indian company. Their land has been compulsorily taken and they have been given no compensation.

“People cannot believe what is happening. Thousands of people will be affected and people will go hungry."

"We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less,” said Shiva. (Google)

New Colonization

The Ethiopian government defends the practice for luring investments and creating jobs.

“They bring badly needed technology, they offer jobs and training to Ethiopians, they operate in areas where there is suitable land and access to water,” a government spokesman said.

"Ethiopia has 74m hectares of fertile land, of which only 15% is currently in use – mainly by subsistence farmers. Of the remaining land, only a small percentage – 3 to 4% – is offered to foreign investors."

Addis Ababa denied that the land rent is causing hunger among its own population.

“Investors are never given land that belongs to Ethiopian farmers. The government also encourages Ethiopians in the Diaspora to invest in their homeland."

But many condemn the practice as a new brand of “colonization”.

"This is the new, 21st-century colonization,” Haile Hirpa, president of the Oromia studies' association in Ethiopia, said in a letter of protest to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

“The Saudis are enjoying the rice harvest, while the Oromos are dying from man-made famine as we speak."

Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva also blasted the practice for throwing people off their land.

"We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less,” she said.

“There will be more conflict and political instability and cultures will be uprooted.

“The small farmers of Africa are the basis of food security. The food availability of the planet will decline."

American Dream…Reality, Challenges

The American dream is not picture perfect, that’s what Darya Cherine has learnt.

She is young, educated and ready to pursue her dreams in life, but she can not find a job in the land of opportunities to make it all come true.

"Many countries look up to the USA, and so their inhabitants tend to have only a positive image of this country," Cherine, a 28 -year-old Russian immigrant, told IslamOnline.net.

"But it’s not all roses."

Cherine immigrated with her family 10 years ago to America, where her father believed his children could have a better life.

But after getting her BA in Romance Languages and Literature, she came face to face with ugly unemployment, making her think for the first time in 10 years of packing and leaving back to Russia.

"You do have opportunities here that perhaps you wouldn’t have anywhere else, but in the USA you often have to give your life away to exercise those opportunities."

Lahsen Oummad, a middle-aged Moroccan who came to the US in 2001 after winning the Green Card, feels Cherine’s pains about unemployment.

He lived in Pennsylvania after he arrived, and after suffering with the language and communication barriers for a while, he got his first job.

But it did not last for long.

Oummad, a father of a young son, lost his job at an IT company last November and has since remained unemployed.

He now lives in Washington DC where he is trying to pursue his study in Economics, which he quit after getting the Green Card, working sometimes as an IT satellite worker, and driving a cab in hard times.

"In the same time, I still have to pay my bills and support my family. Life here is too expensive."

Since 1819 when the Congress issued the first law legalizing immigration to the US, the waves of immigrants have not stopped.

The Census Bureau estimates between 10-11 million legal immigrants were welcomed into the US from 1991 to 2000.

The recent past years, however, have witnessed decrease in the immigrant flow, mostly linked to the economic recession.

Come True

Nonetheless, America’s promise of being the land of opportunities remains true to many.

"I feel free and happy," Dina, an Egyptian immigrant, told IOL with a sparkling glance in her eyes.

"I enjoy the weather, I work with very diverse people, I live independently and I love the quality of life as well as the dignity of each individual."

Dina, 27, has been in the US for two years now since she got a job offer as a Program Manager at Microsoft in Seattle.

She has never regretted taking the decision to move to the US, and prefers to stay in what she calls her new home forever.

"Whenever I visit Egypt I realize how much I miss my friends and family, but I also realize how grateful I am to have the happy, free life that I have here in the US."

Like Dina, Gaberiel Hidalog, a 30-year-old biologist from Peru, found his dream in America.

At the advice of his mother, who immigrated years before him, Hidalog came to the US four years ago pursuing his scientific research in Washington DC.

"Here in the US, I was taught that you can be anything you want," he asserts.

"It has also taught me that although it is somewhat hard for us immigrants here because of the different culture and different language sometimes, with a lot of work and dedication one can achieve one's dreams and aspirations."

But unlike the Egyptian immigrant, Hidalog says life in the US does not make him forget the idea of returning back to his homeland.

"I think that your culture, your country will always be a part of you, and in my case I still feel nostalgic when I think about Peru."

Even Oummad, the Moroccan immigrant, says that the difficulties he is facing are not making him give up pursuing the American dream.

"The image of a land of dreams is still a good image even if it’s now dusted because there is always hope of change," he says.

"One day we will achieve our dreams, inshaAllah."