Outlook

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On Outlook today with Aasmah Mir... Eritean Deserters and the fines they face. Conscription in the Eritrean army is compulsory. Those who dare to desert are often imprisoned in appalling conditions. Outlook talks to one deserter who fled the country to escape the army but the authorities demanded a fine of around three thousand dollars from his father. When he couldn't pay he was put in prison where he died.The Eritrean government deny that this goes on, despite protests by international human rights groups. The World's First Opera about Alzheimer's Dramatist Glyn Maxwell tells Aasmah Mir why he has chosen to take on the subject of Alzheimer's and turn it into an opera. The first Arab-American Miss USA Rima Fakih started off as a tomboy - but ended up as Miss USA. What's even more significant though is that she is the first Arab-American to win it. She tells us how her family moved from southern Lebanon to the US and the ambitions her parents had for her in America.