Erstellt am: 7. 4. 2015 - 14:17 Uhr

"Beyond Inhumane"

Reality Check: the situation in Yarmouk; Yemen's Houthis; Tony Blair & UK election; commercial drones; why Neanderthals died out.

Yarmouk

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is mandated with providing assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East. Now it is calling for more attention to be focussed on the plight of people in Yarmouk, a refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus.

EPA/United Nations Relief and Works Agency

This picture showing Palestinian and Syrian residents of Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp crowding in a destroyed street as food is distributed was made available earlier this year by UNRWA.

For two years, the residents of Yarmouk have been living under siege, but since 1st April and the advance of Islamic State fighters into the area, the situation has deteriorated. The UN describes conditions there as “beyond inhumane” and the United Nations Security Council is looking at ways to help the thousands of Palestinian refugees and Syrian civilians caught up in the fighting.

Chris Gunness, spokesperson and director of advocacy and strategic communications for UNRWA describes the situation in Yarmouk:

Yemen's Houthis

As fighting in the city of Aden intensifies, Peter Salisbury explains how the followers of the Houthi movement evolved into the rebels who are now fighting against President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi:

Tony Blair

The former British Labour Party Prime Minister joins the election campaign with a speech attacking Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to a referendum on EU membership if he wins. A report from our correspondent Catherine Drew in London:

EPA/Ingo Wagner

Commercial Drones

How long will it be until our skies are filled with autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles delivering parcels and carrying out other tasks like surveying bridges and pipelines? An interview with Nicholas Roy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

The Downfall of the Neanderthals

One of the mysteries of evolution is the question as to why Neanderthals, closely related to Homo sapiens, died out 45,000 years ago. Anthropologist Pat Shipman explains her theory about what made Homo sapiens different and at an evolutionary advantage: