United Nations: Refugee displacement at seven-decade high

The United Nations said 65.6 million people were displaced from their homes because of conflict and persecution by the end of 2016, which is an increase of about 300,000 from 2015.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday released its annual Global Trends study. It found an average of 20 people were driven out from their homes every minute last year, the refugee agency said.

"War, violence and persecution have uprooted more men, women and children around the world than at any time in the seven-decade history of UNHCR," the agency said in a statement.

The UNHCR said there have been annual increases to the global displacement total for the past five years, but while the 2016 total increased, the rate at which displacement grew that year slowed.

The UNHCR said 40.3 million people of the 65.6 million people displaced in 2016 were uprooted within the borders of their own countries, identified as internally displaced persons, or IDPs. That number was 500,000 fewer than in 2015.

Also in 2016, the total number of people seeking asylum globally was 2.8 million, about 400,000 fewer than in 2015.

"By any measure this is an unacceptable number," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement. "It speaks louder than ever to the need for solidarity and common purpose in preventing and resolving crises, and ensuring together that the world's refugees, internally displaced and asylum-seekers are properly protected and cared for while solutions are pursued."

About 22.5 million people are seeking safety across international borders as refugees, which is the highest number recorded since the UNHCR's founding in 1950 following World War II.

The Syrian civil war contributes most to increasing refugees; 5.5 million Syrians are identified as refugees, the UNHCR said. About 12 million Syrians, or some 65 percent of the country's population, are displaced internally or live outside of the country as refugees, the most worldwide.

Colombia has the second-highest displaced population with 7.7 million and Afghanistan has the third-highest displaced population with 4.7 million, the UNHCR said. Iraq has the fourth-highest displaced population with 4.2 million, followed by South Sudan with 3.3 million.

In 2016, the conflict in South Sudan became the fastest-growing displacement of people in the world. About 3.3 million people were displaced, with 737,400 being externally displaced.

Demand for UC immigrant student legal services soars as Trump policies sow uncertainty

Maria Blanco did a double take when the Google alert popped up in her inbox late last week: President Trump had reversed his campaign pledge and decided to continue a federal program temporarily suspending deportations of young people who are in the country illegally.

The news thrilled Blanco, an attorney who heads the University of California Immigrant Legal Services Center — the nation’s first and only university system to provide free legal aid to students without legal status and their families.

But her excitement was quashed within hours, when administration officials clarified that they still had made “no final determination” on the program — called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — leaving in question the fate of 750,000 young immigrants under its protection. An estimated 3,700 students without legal status attend UC campuses.

“It’s such a roller-coaster ride,” Blanco said Saturday. “We’re back to where we were, which is not knowing really what the fate of this program is. Everybody’s still in limbo.”

As uncertainty over Trump’s immigration policies persists, Blanco and other attorneys at the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center have become academia’s go-to experts. Should students apply for DACA and give their personal information to the Trump administration? Should they travel abroad and risk being denied reentry?

Can students rest easy with the recent news that U.S. immigration officials actually approved more DACA applications in the first three months of this year than in the same period last year?

The center’s attorneys wrestle with such questions daily — along with a soaring workload. Blanco estimates that cases totaled more than 800 for the 2016-17 academic year, compared with 362 last year. Most of them involve DACA applications, travel permissions, help for students’ families and general consultations.

Other universities across the nation have flooded the center with requests for information on how to set up similar programs. The center’s attorneys have held “know your rights” campus workshops and briefed UC administrators on immigration issues.

“Since the election, it’s been nonstop,” Blanco said.

Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Attorney Amy Frances Barnett, left, advises a UC Davis student at the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center at UC Davis. The student arrived in the United States unlawfully as an infant.

Attorney Amy Frances Barnett, left, advises a UC Davis student at the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center at UC Davis. The student arrived in the United States unlawfully as an infant. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Students say the center, housed at UC Davis, has been their lifeline. One young man, who asked for anonymity to protect himself, said he sobbed for hours after Trump was elected, wondering if he would be kicked out of the only country he has called home since he arrived unlawfully as an infant.

He researched countries that might accept Mexicans like himself and hatched fallback plans to immigrate to another country. He wondered if he should risk reapplying for a federal work permit under the DACA program.

“One country wants nothing to do with you; the other country you don’t even remember,” he said during a recent interview. “You feel you don’t deserve to belong anywhere.”

But he said Amy Frances Barnett, a center attorney, has calmed his anxieties with her reassuring manner and legal aid. During a recent meeting, she updated him on his application for a work permit and gave him a pocket-sized handout developed by UC on what to do if approached by immigration officers. It advised of the right to remain silent but said to be polite and truthful.

“Keep it in your wallet in case you come into contact with police,” Barnett told him.

“OK, sweet,” he said.

He is working toward degrees in psychology and neurobiology/physiology, aiming to become a neurosurgeon and prove his worth to Americans. “If I work hard enough, maybe they’ll want me,” he said.

Another student said Rachel Ray, a managing attorney at the center, helped him renew his DACA permit and prepared him for questioning last year by U.S. border officials when he returned to California from a study abroad trip to Mexico. He practiced his answers in front of the mirror, terrified he might be turned back at the border. But he got through easily, said the student, who hopes to attend law school after graduating this year with degrees in political science and psychology.

“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” he said. “They are an essential resource for the community.”

The center was launched in January 2015 by UC President Janet Napolitano, who helped create the DACA program as U.S. Homeland Security secretary in the Obama administration. She said the idea for the center stemmed from conversations with immigrant students after she joined UC in 2013 and was consistent with the state’s generous policies toward those without legal status. Nearly one-third of DACA recipients live in California.

“Our undocumented students are part of our university community, and they have unique legal needs,” Napolitano said. “They are under a lot of stress right now.”

The UC Davis law school was chosen to house the center because of deep expertise — it created the nation’s first immigration law clinic in 1980 and has the largest immigration law faculty in the nation. Another asset: law school Dean Kevin Johnson eagerly welcomed the project with space and resources.

The center initially provided legal services to the six UC campuses without law schools. Napolitano last year increased funding to $2.5 million over three years, allowing the center to extend services systemwide except for UC Berkeley, which assists students through a partnership with a community legal services center. Today, the center employs nine attorneys who speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Japanese, Arabic, Burmese, Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati.

Critics include Stephen Frank, a senior contributing editor of the California Political Review, who lambasted the center as “a sleazy, corrupt operation providing law violators assistance so they can continue to violate our laws.”

Blanco responds that the legal services reflect the university’s commitment to help students in need, whether immigrants, veterans, the disabled or sexual abuse victims.

She is trying to raise money to sustain the center beyond Napolitano’s three-year commitment. UCLA supports one of the full-time attorneys with its own funds.

Blanco also shares the center’s work with campuses across the nation, including the Ivy League schools, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Oregon, Pomona College, the California State University system and California Community Colleges. The UC Berkeley alumna, who has more than two decades of experience in civil rights legal work for such nonprofits as the California Community Foundation and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, recently spoke to college administrators at a symposium at Occidental College.

She urged them not to be intimidated by threats of losing federal funding or their tax-exempt status if they help students who are in the country illegally.

“Institutions need to have the backbone to do this,” she told them. “It will be a fight…. I really encourage institutions to not be scared immediately by these threats.”

But the toughest issue, she said, is the uncertainty over Trump’s intentions.

How ominous was a tweet from U.S. immigration officials this year saying deferred action on deportations is “discretionary”? How hopeful are new data showing that approvals of DACA applications more than tripled to 125,000 between January and March of this year over the same period last year?

Blanco simply doesn’t know. At the moment, she and her team have altered their earlier advice against new applications for DACA and are now willing to consider filing them for students with “squeaky clean” records.

But that may change — again and again.

“You’re constantly trying to read between the lines, and the lines keep changing,” she said.

Times staff writer Rosanna Xia contributed to this story.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

Twitter: @teresawatanabe

London Van Attack: One dead as police investigate incident as terrorism

The man suspected of mowing down a crowd exiting Ramadan prayers at a London mosque early Monday was captured on video blowing a kiss at bystanders as he was hauled off to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

At least one person was killed and 10 others were injured in the assault, which authorities were treating as a terrorist attack.

A 48-year-old man was arrested in the collision with pedestrians outside the Muslim Welfare House, Metropolitan police said. People at the scene shouted at him: "Why did you do that? Why?"

The incident occurred outside the Finsbury Park Mosque shortly after midnight after Ramadan prayers. Police said all of the injured were members of the Muslim community. Muslim leaders decried the collision as a hate crime and asked the public to stay calm.

Police said eight of the injured were taken to three hospitals and two suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene.

Witnesses reported seeing at least one person receiving chest compressions. Police said that person was the lone death in the incident, but it was unclear if it was the van that caused the death.

Prime Minister Theresa May described the attack as a "sickening" attempt to destroy liberties that unite Britain, such as freedom of worship. She added that the man acted alone. May said earlier she would chair an emergency security Cabinet session later Monday and that her thoughts were with the injured, their loved ones and emergency officials who responded to the incident.

A leader of the Muslim Council of Britain called for extra security at mosques in light of the apparent attack. The group's general secretary, Harun Khan, described the incident as a hate crime against Muslims.

"During the night, ordinary British citizens were set upon while they were going about their lives, completing their night worship," he said. "It appears from eyewitness accounts that the perpetrator was motivated by Islamophobia."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to serve in that position, said extra police would be deployed. He called the incident a "horrific terrorist attack."

Video filmed in the immediate aftermath showed a Caucasian man being detained by police. Someone in the crowd yelled to others not to harm the man while he was taken into custody, according to AP.

The chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque said the van crash that hit worshippers was a "cowardly attack" and urged Muslims going to mosques to be vigilant.

Mohammed Kozbar said the Muslim community is "in shock." He complained that the "mainstream media" was unwilling to call the attack a terrorist incident for many hours.

London police closed the area to normal traffic. A helicopter circled above the area as a large cordon was established to keep motorists and pedestrians away.

Witnesses told British media that the van seemed to have veered off the road and hit people intentionally. They also said two men jumped out of the van and fled the scene, but police said the suspect was only one man and the investigation is still ongoing.

Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation, a Muslim organization, said that based on eyewitness reports, it seems to be a "deliberate attack against innocent Muslims."

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a tweet he was shocked by the incident.

Britain's terrorist alert has been set at "severe," meaning an attack is highly likely.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Oil is hovering around 3-month highs and traders are getting nervous

US oil futures flirted with new highs for 2016 on Friday, adding to strong gains from the previous session as optimism grew that major producers would strike a deal to freeze output, while a more benign interest-rate environment also supported prices.

But gains have been pared and oil prices are falling again as London wakes up, though only just.

US crude rose as far as $40.55 (£28.05) a barrel in Asian trade overnight — its highest level this year. On Thursday, the contracted rose 4.5% to close at $40.20 (£27.81) after climbing as high as $40.26 (£27.85).

At pixel time (7:35 a.m. GMT, 3:35 a.m. ET), though, US crude is down 0.27% to $40.09 (£27.74) a barrel. UK Brent oil is down 0.43% to $41.35 (£28.61).

But we're still seeing prices hover around three-month highs:Investing.com

Oil prices have surged more than 50% from 12-year lows since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries floated the idea of a production freeze, boosting Brent from about $27 a barrel and US crude from about $26.

US oil is heading for a fifth week of gains, the longest rising streak in about a year, while Brent is on course for a fourth weekly increase, the longest run in about 12 months.

But some are urging caution after the strong gains. "Global fundamentals are little changed and oil has instead been lifted by higher risk-appetite," BNP Paribas said in a note.

"A dialogue among key producing countries to address oil output will at best yield a decision to freeze output, but not the much-needed reduction required to rebalance the market," BNP said.

BNP estimates there will be a 1 million barrel increase in global stocks by the end of the first half of 2016.

Still, a weakening dollar after a Federal Reserve policy decision on Wednesday that indicated two US rate hikes this year instead of four is also attracting oil buyers that hold other currencies.

The OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC producers led by Russia will meet April 17 in the Qatari capital, Doha, aiming for the first global supply deal in 15 years.

Microsoft is trying to change Windows software forever — here’s why it’ll be a tough fight

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

One of Satya Nadella's biggest initiatives is also his riskiest: TheUniversal Windows Platform, or UWP, a new way for Microsoft developers to build and sell their Windows apps across a huge range of devices. We heard a lot about the UWP at this week's Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco, and we'll hear about it again later this month when Microsoft holds its Build conference for developers.

But what is it?
Write once, run on any version of Windows

The basic idea behind UWP is simple. Developers just have to write an app once, and it'll run on any Windows 10 device, now or in the future — from PCs and tablets to smartphones and, soon, the HoloLens and the Xbox One video game console.

If it works, it'll

An American who traveled to Iraq to join ISIS before fleeing says he made a 'bad decision'

A 26-year-old American man who was captured by Kurdish forces in Iraq earlier this week, said he had traveled from Turkey to join Islamic State before deciding to escape, according to an interview with Kurdish television on Thursday.

Two Kurdish militia officers said on Monday an American, bearded and dressed in black, had surrendered after being surrounded near the village of Golat, in northern Iraq.

The man's Virginia drivers license identified him as Kweis Mohammed Jamal.

In the video Kweis, looking healthy but subdued, recounted his journey from the United States to Mosul and then into the hands of

Meet the plus-size male model everyone is talking about

The modelling industry has just made space for bigger men and it’s amazing. IMG Models agency recently announced and launched their plus-size male division. Their most talked about model, Zachary Miko, is the new face of its plus-size male division, making way for a new repertoire in the male fashion industry called ‘brawn’.

The modelling agency announced Miko as their representative when president of IMG, Ivan Bart, told WWD that brawn promotes body positivity and physical strength.
IMG hopes representing Miko will allow larger men to feel more confident and comfortable with themselves. According to People, the model’s first big gig didn’t start off too well when his very first shoot day for Target’s website had a wardrobe size issue.
The 26-year-old is 6’6’’ (which is 198cm, so he’s freakishly tall) and has a 40-inch waist, which makes him amazingly unique. The New Yorker told People Magazine that he struggled with his self-esteem his entire life and that he never thought of himself as an attractive person. He also said that he wouldn’t have had the confidence to model if it had not been for his wife, Laura.

Not only men sculpted like the statue of David should be catered to and seen on billboards. What about the average Joes? I think this is fantastic, and I am actually surprised that this is only happening now!

And with over 15 000 followers on Instagram and his new signing to IMG, Miko is definitely giving men the confidence to be happy with their body no matter what size they are.

- Women24