Ayoub mzee with friends-Actors
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release June 9, 20092009/569
Notice to the Press
2009 World Food Prize Winner
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce the winner of the 2009 World Food Prize Laureate in a ceremony on Thursday, June 11, at 11:43 a.m., in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State. Also attending will be Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Kenneth Quinn, President of the World Food Prize Foundation and former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs David Nelson will host the event.
The World Food Prize recognizes the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. The World Food Prize includes a cash award of $250,000 and a sculpture by world-renowned designer Saul Bass. Each year, more than 4,000 institutions and organizations around the world are invited to nominate candidates for the prize. The World Food Prize is guided by a distinguished Council of Advisors that includes former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.
For more information on the World Food Prize, go to http://www.worldfoodprize.org/.
This event is open press coverage.
Pre-set time for Cameras: 10:15 a.m. from the 23rd Street entrance.
Final access time for writers and stills: 11:15 a.m. from the 23rd Street entrance
Media representatives may attend this event upon presentation of one of the following: (1) a U.S. government-issued identification card (State Department, White House, Congress, Defense Department, Foreign Press Center), (2) a media-issued photo identity card, or (3) a letter from their employer on letterhead verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied by official photo identification (driver’s license or passport).
Media inquiries for this event may be directed to:Kerry Humphrey (202) 647-0677 Jeffrey Jamison (202) 647-4864Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release June 9, 20092009/569
Notice to the Press
2009 World Food Prize Winner
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce the winner of the 2009 World Food Prize Laureate in a ceremony on Thursday, June 11, at 11:43 a.m., in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State. Also attending will be Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Kenneth Quinn, President of the World Food Prize Foundation and former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs David Nelson will host the event.
The World Food Prize recognizes the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. The World Food Prize includes a cash award of $250,000 and a sculpture by world-renowned designer Saul Bass. Each year, more than 4,000 institutions and organizations around the world are invited to nominate candidates for the prize. The World Food Prize is guided by a distinguished Council of Advisors that includes former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.
For more information on the World Food Prize, go to http://www.worldfoodprize.org/.
This event is open press coverage.
Pre-set time for Cameras: 10:15 a.m. from the 23rd Street entrance.
Final access time for writers and stills: 11:15 a.m. from the 23rd Street entrance
Media representatives may attend this event upon presentation of one of the following: (1) a U.S. government-issued identification card (State Department, White House, Congress, Defense Department, Foreign Press Center), (2) a media-issued photo identity card, or (3) a letter from their employer on letterhead verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied by official photo identification (driver’s license or passport).
Media inquiries for this event may be directed to:Kerry Humphrey (202) 647-0677 Jeffrey Jamison (202) 647-4864Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs
Asylum seekers wrongly refused legal aid
By Frances Webber
A local law centre project to help unrepresented asylum seekers has demonstrated that the vast majority are wrongly refused legal help for their appeals.
In June 2007, Devon Law Centre set up its Asylum Appellate Project (AAP), to help asylum seekers refused public funding for their appeals to obtain it, and to obtain the evidence necessary to change public policy. The law centre's second report demonstrates the importance of this project. It has succeeded in reversing funding refusals in thirty-eight of the forty-five cases it has dealt with (84 per cent), and ten of the thirty-three asylum appeals it has dealt with (30 per cent) have resulted in permission to stay being granted.
Asylum seekers whose claims are refused by the Home Office should be granted legal aid for their appeal provided their claim has at least a 50 per cent chance of success. But solicitors who take on too many unsuccessful claimants can lose their contract with the Legal Services Commission. This has made solicitors extremely cautious about the cases they grant legal aid to, and has led to a 'cherry-picking' mentality whereby they accept only the cases which are obviously going to succeed. And in a vicious circle, appellants who have no legal representation have a much lower chance of success on appeal - partly because asylum seekers lack the necessary expertise to know about calling witnesses or obtaining reports in support of their claim, let alone the finance to do so, and partly because, as the project appears to confirm, immigration judges take far less trouble over unrepresented claimants. There is an assumption that, because the person has no legal representation, their claim must be unfounded. So the wrongful denial of legal aid means that genuine asylum claimants are likely to have their appeals rejected.
People helped to gain asylum by the project include a Chinese trade unionist who had been tortured in a forced labour camp, Zimbabwean opposition members, a member of a persecuted Somali clan and two Pakistani sisters who were victims of serious violence, rape and abuse. Without the work of the project, all of them would have been forced either to go back to face the situation they fled from or to live a destitute life on the margins in the UK.
Although on a small scale, based on the asylum seekers assisted in Devon and Cornwall, if the project's results were replicated nationally, it would mean that solicitors are wrongly refusing legal aid in four out of five cases, and that in almost a third of those cases, representation would result in a successful appeal. This is an invaluable report for those campaigning for access to justice for asylum seekers.
[1] Devon Law Centre, Asylum Appellate Project: Second Year Report, June 2009.
By Frances Webber
A local law centre project to help unrepresented asylum seekers has demonstrated that the vast majority are wrongly refused legal help for their appeals.
In June 2007, Devon Law Centre set up its Asylum Appellate Project (AAP), to help asylum seekers refused public funding for their appeals to obtain it, and to obtain the evidence necessary to change public policy. The law centre's second report demonstrates the importance of this project. It has succeeded in reversing funding refusals in thirty-eight of the forty-five cases it has dealt with (84 per cent), and ten of the thirty-three asylum appeals it has dealt with (30 per cent) have resulted in permission to stay being granted.
Asylum seekers whose claims are refused by the Home Office should be granted legal aid for their appeal provided their claim has at least a 50 per cent chance of success. But solicitors who take on too many unsuccessful claimants can lose their contract with the Legal Services Commission. This has made solicitors extremely cautious about the cases they grant legal aid to, and has led to a 'cherry-picking' mentality whereby they accept only the cases which are obviously going to succeed. And in a vicious circle, appellants who have no legal representation have a much lower chance of success on appeal - partly because asylum seekers lack the necessary expertise to know about calling witnesses or obtaining reports in support of their claim, let alone the finance to do so, and partly because, as the project appears to confirm, immigration judges take far less trouble over unrepresented claimants. There is an assumption that, because the person has no legal representation, their claim must be unfounded. So the wrongful denial of legal aid means that genuine asylum claimants are likely to have their appeals rejected.
People helped to gain asylum by the project include a Chinese trade unionist who had been tortured in a forced labour camp, Zimbabwean opposition members, a member of a persecuted Somali clan and two Pakistani sisters who were victims of serious violence, rape and abuse. Without the work of the project, all of them would have been forced either to go back to face the situation they fled from or to live a destitute life on the margins in the UK.
Although on a small scale, based on the asylum seekers assisted in Devon and Cornwall, if the project's results were replicated nationally, it would mean that solicitors are wrongly refusing legal aid in four out of five cases, and that in almost a third of those cases, representation would result in a successful appeal. This is an invaluable report for those campaigning for access to justice for asylum seekers.
[1] Devon Law Centre, Asylum Appellate Project: Second Year Report, June 2009.
