Syrian rebels find, enlist new fighters at massive refugee camp
ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan — In a makeshift mosque in a trailer in this sprawling camp for Syrian refugees, a preacher appeals to worshippers to join their countrymen in the fight to topple President Bashar Assad. In another corner of the Zaatari camp, two men draped in the Syrian rebel flag call on refugees through loudspeakers to sign up for military training.
Rebels in the camp freely acknowledge recruiting fighters in the camp in a drive that has increased since the summer, trying to bolster rebel ranks in the face of stepped up offensives by Assad’s forces just across the border in southern Syria.
Recruiting is banned in Zaatari, and the rebel activities put Jordanian officials and United Nations’ officials running the camp in a delicate position. Wary of further increasing tensions with the government in neighboring Syria, Jordan has sought to keep its support of rebels under the radar, officially denying that any training of anti-Assad fighters takes place on its soil, though both Jordanian and American officials have acknowledged it does.
For the U.N., the recruitment mars what is supposed to be a purely humanitarian mission of helping the streams of Syrians fleeing the 2 ½-year-old civil war, which activists say has killed more than 120,000 people.
Biggest economies being sustained by help from central banks with risks
WASHINGTON — Five years after a global financial crisis erupted, the world’s biggest economies still need to be propped up.
They’re growing and hiring a little faster and creating more jobs, but only with extraordinary aid from central banks or government spending. And economists say major countries may need help for years more.
From the United States to Europe to Japan, central banks are pumping cash into economies and keeping loan rates near record lows. Even fast-growing China has rebounded from an uncharacteristic slump with the help of government money that’s poured into projects and made loans easily available from state-owned banks.
For now, thanks in part to the intervention, the world economy is improving. The International Monetary Fund expects global growth to rise to 3.6 percent in 2014 from 2.9 percent this year.
New Colorado? Rural residents say yes to secession idea
AKRON, Colo. — The nation’s newest state, if rural Colorado residents had their way, would be about the size of Vermont but with the population of a small town spread across miles of farmland. There wouldn’t be civil unions for gay couples, legal recreational marijuana, new renewable energy standards, or limits on ammunition magazines.
After all, those were some of the reasons five counties on the state’s Eastern Plains voted on Election Day to approve the creation of a 51st state in the first place.
Secession supporters know the votes were symbolic, designed to grab the attention of a Democratic-controlled Legislature. They say the vote results emphasize a growing frustration in conservative prairie towns with the more populous and liberal urban Front Range, which has helped solidify the Democrats’ power.
“We can’t outvote the metropolitan areas anymore, and the rural areas don’t have a voice anymore,” said Perk Odell, 80, a lifelong resident of Akron in Washington County, which voted to secede.
The five counties share borders, covering about 9,500 square miles and have a combined population of about 29,200. Four of the counties — Philips, Yuma, Kit Carson and Cheyenne — border Kansas. They are solidly Republican areas that have long identified more with Kansas and Nebraska because of their agricultural background.
By wire reports
