Syrian govt. rules out talks on Assad future, focus is counter-terrorism The fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not part of the negotiations with the opposition, the head of the Syrian government’s delegation said on Monday, insisting that counter-terrorism efforts remained the priority for Damascus.Bashar Ja’afari, speaking to reporters at the start of a second week of talks with U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, accused the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) of failing to respond to its paper on basic principles and of not engaging fully.
Ja’afari, asked about the willingness of the government delegation to engage in serious talks on political transition, and the fate of Assad, replied: « These are two separate issues actually. President Assad has nothing to do with the Syria-Syria talks. »The (terms of) reference of our talks do not give any indication whatsoever with regard to the issue of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic. This is something already excluded, » he said.
Little progress had been made in the latest round of indirect talks, Ja’afari said. « We believe that a week and a half has been wasted without responding to a paper is a pretext for wasting time. »The crisis in Syria is painful and we have clear instructions from our leadership, » he added.
U.N. Syria envoy says political transition must be on table The U.N. Syria special envoy said on Monday he was concerned by the slow progress of talks warning that without dialogue beginning on a political transition it would be difficult to sustain the cessation of hostilities and aid deliveries.Speaking after talks with the head of the Syrian government delegation Bashar Ja’afari, Staffan de Mistura said that Ja’afari had told him it was too early to discuss political transition.
« He said it was premature at the moment to talk about it.Premature means imminent as far as we (U.N.) is concerned, » de Mistura told reporters. »Everyone more or less agrees, the cessation of hostilities is still holding and frankly largely. The same … more or less for the movement on humanitarian aid. But neither of them can be sustained if we don’t get progress on the political transition. »
Syria opposition says government wasting time at Geneva talksThe Syrian opposition accused the government delegation at peace talks in Geneva on Monday of wasting time by refusing to discuss the future of President Bashar al-Assad.
« It is not possible to wait like this, while the regime delegation wastes time without achieving anything, » said Salim al-Muslat, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee. »We want to see a result as soon as possible and we hope that there will be efforts and pressures to mobilise this process, » Muslat told al-Arabiya al-Hadath news channel.
Islamic State forces kill 26 Syrian soldiers near Palmyra – monitor Islamic State fighters killed 26 Syrian soldiers on Monday west of Palmyra, a monitoring group said, after days of advances by government forces backed by Syrian and Russian air cover.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the Syrian army would soon recapture Palmyra from Islamic State, which has held the desert city for nearly a year.Palmyra has both symbolic and military value as the site of ancient Roman-era ruins – mostly destroyed by the ultra-hardline Islamist group – and because of its location on a highway linking mainly government-held western Syria to Islamic State’s eastern stronghold.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting took place about 4 km (2 miles) west of Palmyra.It was not possible to independently verify the death toll.Syria’s state news agency SANA said the army and allied forces, backed by the Syrian air force, carried out « concentrated operations » against Islamic State around Palmyra and the Islamic State-held town of al-Qaryatayn, about 100 km further west.
After more than five months of air strikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Putin announced the withdrawal last week of most Russian forces. But Russian planes have continued to support army operations near Palmyra, according to the Observatory and regional media, and Putin said on Thursday he hoped that the city would soon fall to the Syrian government.
« I hope that this pearl of world civilisation, or at least what’s left of it after bandits have held sway there, will be returned to the Syrian people and the entire world, » he said.
In southern Syria, a militant group loyal to Islamic State seized a village near the Jordanian border and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday from al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, the Observatory said.It said the Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade captured the village of Tasil, about 10 km (6 miles) from the Golan Heights and a similar distance from the Jordanian border.
Abu Saleh al-Musalima, Nusra Front commander in the south of the country, was killed in the fighting, the Observatory said, as well as three insurgents from other Islamist factions fighting alongside the group, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.Islamic State and the Nusra Front are both excluded from an internationally backed limited truce in Syria, which has been in place for nearly three weeks to allow peace talks to take place in Geneva between the government and opposition groups.
Russia says to act on its own against Syria truce breaches if no U.S. responseRussia will act unilaterally against those militants who violate ceasefire in Syria if Moscow does not reach agreement with the United States on a mechanism of detecting and preventing truce breaches, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
The ceasefire agreement, worked out by Russia and the U.S., is largely respected, the ministry said. But the two nations, which co-chair the Syria International Support Group, have so far failed to agree on terms of preventing all cases of ceasefire violations, which sends a wrong signal to « those members of the opposition … who have not dissociated themselves clearly enough from well-known terrorist groups », it said. Russia’s general staff of the armed forces proposed earlier on Monday to hold an urgent meeting with U.S. representatives to agree on the mechanism of controlling the ceasefire in Syria, saying it would act unilaterally starting from March 22 if it gets no response.The United States later rejected the call from Russia’s military, saying that its concerns were already being handled in a constructive manner.
Morocco asks UN to shut military office in Western Sahara Morocco has asked the United Nations to close a military liaison office in the disputed territory of Western Sahara as a spat between Rabat and the U.N. chief over his recent remarks escalates, a U.N.spokesman said on Monday. Dozens of U.N. international staffers pulled out of their Western Sahara mission, known as MINURSO, on Sunday after Morocco demanded they leave after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used the term « occupation » during a recent visit to the region. « MINURSO has … received a request to close its military liaison office in Dakhla in the coming days, which would be the first request directly targeting the military component, » U.N.spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
« There is no reason, none, for this escalation, » he said, adding it would set a bad precedent for other missions if a single member state was permitted to interfere with a peacekeeping operation.Without a properly functioning peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, Haq said there was a risk of a resumption of tensions and possibly even conflict.
Ban was meeting with Security Council members on Monday and he would raise Western Sahara, Haq said.U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric chided the council on Friday for not taking a strong stand in the dispute. The controversy over Ban’s comments is Morocco’s worst dispute with the United Nations since 1991, when the U.N.brokered a ceasefire to end a war over the Western Sahara and established the mission.Morocco had demanded last week that 81 U.N. international civilian staff and three African Union staff leave the mission.
Haq said 73 of the U.N. personnel were temporarily reassigned. He noted that 11 individuals that MINURSO ordered out of the mission no longer worked there. Morocco had initially given the mission three days to withdraw the specified personnel, but later extended that to « within the coming days. » Rabat accused Ban earlier this month of no longer being neutral in the Western Sahara dispute when he used the word « occupation » to describe its annexation of the region in 1975, when Morocco took over from colonial power Spain.Ban had visited refugee camps in southern Algeria for the Sahrawi people, who say Western Sahara belongs to them. They fought a war against Morocco until the 1991 ceasefire.The Polisario Front wants a referendum on independence, but Rabat says it will only grant autonomy.Before the reductions, the mission had nearly 500 military and civilian personnel.
Algerian troops kill 6 Islamist militants near Tunisia border – ministry Algerian troops killed six armed Islamist fighters in the country’s southeast near the Tunisian border, and captured arms and munitions, the ministry of defence said on Monday. They were killed in El Oued, and Kalashnikov rifles, handguns and ammunition were recovered from two off-road vehicles, the ministry said in a statement.Algeria and Tunisia cooperate in security along their frontier, where a small group of fighters from al the Qaeda-linked Okba Ibn Nafaa brigade operates in Tunisia’s Chaambi mountains.
Militants are suspected to have fled there after French troops intervened in 2013 in response to an Islamist insurgency in Mali, which borders Algeria to the north. A war with Islamist militants killed 200,000 people in Algeria in the 1990s, since when the country has been relatively peaceful.But Al Qaeda’s North Africa branch and Islamic State continue to operate in remote pockets of the country.Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed a rocket attack on Friday on a southern Algerian gas plant operated by BP, Statoil and state energy firm Sonatrach. It caused no damage or casualties, but on Monday the two foreign companies began pulling workers out of gas sites in the country.
BP, Statoil to withdraw staff from Algerian plants after attack BP and Norway’s Statoil will withdraw staff from two gas plants in Algeria after an attack by militants on one of the sites in the North African country, the companies said on Monday.
Militants attacked the In Salah gas plant, operated with state-owned Sonatrach, with rockets on Friday, causing no casualties or damage. Al Qaeda’s North Africa branch claimed responsibility for the attack. Algeria’s energy infrastructure has been heavily protected by the army, especially since a 2013 attack on the In Amenas gas plant, also operated by BP and Statoil, during which 40 oil workers were killed. « BP has decided to undertake a phased temporary relocation of all its staff from the In Salah Gas and In Amenas JVs in Algeria over the next two weeks. This decision has been taken as a precautionary measure, » the British firm said in a statement.
Statoil said it would also withdraw staff from the In Salah and In Amenas plants, together with staff from its operations centre at Hassi Messaoud. « It will happen over the next few weeks. Those who are on rotation now will not be replaced when they finish their shifts, » a Statoil spokesman said, declining to say for security reasons how many employees would be affected.
« It’s only been four days since shots were fired at In Salah. The production started again, but in the current situation we believe that this is the right decision to make, » the spokesman added. Sonatrach workers were maintaining gas output after BP and Statoil announced they would pull out some of their staff, a Sonatrach source told Reuters on Monday.
According to BP’s website, In Salah started production in 2004 from the Krechba, Teguentour and Reg fields. In February, it announced the start up of development of the Gour Mahmoud, In Salah, Garet el Befinat and Hassi Moumene fields, to bring output to 9 billion cubic metres a year.Statoil, BP and Sonatrach were due to restart the third and final processing train at the In Amenas gas plant, damaged during the 2013 attack, later this year.Statoil repeated on Monday the restart of that train would still happen « in the coming months ». (R
Sadr wants Iraqis to get a share of country’s oil revenue Influential Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr urged followers demonstrating in Baghdad for a new government to also demand that politicians give every Iraqi a direct share of the nation’s oil revenues.
Sadr’s followers have been staging protests for about a month demanding a new government be formed with technocrats not affiliated with political parties in order to fight what they say is rampant corruption. As well as repeating that rallying cry, keeping the pressure on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, he demanded economic progress and for the country’s petrodollars to reach ordinary citizens. « Allocate a share for each Iraqi citizen from the oil revenues, » he said in the televised speech detailing proposals to end graft, improve public services and revive the economy. He gave no detail on how this might be done.Iraq, with crude oil reserves among the largest in the world, ranks 161 out of 168 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2015.Since Friday, the protesters have also been holding a sit-in at the gates of the Green Zone which houses government offices, the parliament and embassies.
Gunmen attack EU military mission HQ in Mali; 1 attacker killed Gunmen on Monday attacked a hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, that had been converted into the headquarters of a European Union military training operation, but there no casualties among the mission’s personnel. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which began at around 6:30 p.m. local time (1830 GMT), but Mali and neighbouring West African countries have increasingly been the target of Islamist militants, some of them affiliated with al Qaeda.One of the assailants was killed and two suspects were arrested and were being interrogated, the country’s internal security minister said.
A witness said the attack targeted Bamako’s Nord-Sud Hotel, headquarters for the mission of nearly 600 EU personnel deployed to Mali to train its security forces. « The attackers tried to force through the entry and the guards posted in front of the entrance opened fire. One attacker was killed, » he said.Sekou Tamboura was also near the hotel when the shooting erupted.
« We were next to the Hamdallaye Cemetery when the first shot rang out, then there was a second and a third. There were a few seconds of pause, then it kicked off and did not stop. It was every man for himself, » Tamboura said.The mission confirmed the attack on its official Twitter feed. »EUTM-MALI HQ has been attacked. No EUTM-Mali personnel has been hurt …during the attack, » it said.
Azala? Hotels, which runs the Nord-Sud Hotel, later posted on Twitter that the assailants had been repelled and the building had been secured. »One of the assailants was killed. We are examining the sack he was carrying, which could contain explosives, » Interior Security Minister Colonel Salif Traor? said on state television. « Two suspects were arrested and are being interrogated. » He added that security forces were carrying out operations around the EU headquarters and seeking to secure another building nearby.
A photo taken of the dead gunman seen by Reuters showed a man who appeared to be in his 20s, possibly from northern Mali, dressed stylishly in jeans, a brown shirt and Nike trainers, lying on his back in a pool of blood beside a Kalashnikov assault rifle.A Reuters reporter at the scene of the attack said security forces, including Malian army special forces, had cordoned off the area while a cleanup operation was carried out.
Vehicles from Mali’s United Nations peacekeeping mission were also visible. The EU mission was deployed as part of efforts to stabilise Mali, which saw Islamist militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda, seize its desert north in 2012.France led an intervention a year later to drive back the Islamists, fearing that the lawless zone could be used as a base for attacks against targets in Europe.
However, violence is again on the rise. Dozens of people were killed in a November raid on Bamako’s Radisson Blu hotel claimed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group’s North African branch.A similar assault on a hotel in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, followed in January. AQIM also claimed responsibility for another attack that killed 19 people a beach resort town in Ivory Coast earlier this month.
Pro-Kurdish leader urges peace talks with Turkey, four soldiers killed Turkey’s Kurds on Monday marked the annual spring festival of Newroz with a call for the resumption of peace talks between the government and Kurdish militants, but four Turkish soldiers were killed in another rebel attack in the restive southeast region.
The appeal from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) for peace talks also coincided with a pledge from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to use all the country’s military and intelligence might to crush terrorism following a spate of suicide bombings, two claimed by Kurdish militants. Since last year’s Newroz festival Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast has seen a big upsurge in violence due to the collapse of a 2-1/2 year ceasefire in July between the Ankara government and militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).In the latest attack, PKK fighters launched a bomb attack on a military vehicle in the town of Nusaybin near the Syrian border, security sources said. The army said four soldiers were killed, while five soldiers and a police officer were wounded.
The attack came as Kurds marked the Newroz festival, a traditional rallying point for PKK supporters who on Monday waved party flags and pictures depicting their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan as they gathered in a park on the outskirts of Diyarbakir, the region’s largest city.
The revellers chanted « We will win by resisting! » « Long live Ocalan! » and « The PKK are the people, the PKK are here! » as music blared over the sound system. « We are ready to take the initiative to return to the peace (talks) table, » HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas said in a speech beneath pictures of Ocalan projected onto a screen. »If they want to achieve a result by crushing with war and violence, bringing people to their knees, this will only bring chaos to our country, » Demirtas told the crowd, which was smaller than in previous years.
ERDOGAN’S « CURSE » At the 2015 Newroz celebrations, in a statement read out on his behalf, Ocalan had said the PKK’s three-decade insurgency had become « unsustainable » and he had urged the rebels to hold a congress on laying down their weapons.Since then fighting has returned to the peak levels of the 1990s, with hundreds killed across the southeast.In Istanbul Erdogan, who regards the HDP as an extension of the PKK and wants to prosecute its lawmakers, warned against any attempt to stir up violence at the Newroz celebrations. « I curse those who consider Newroz not as a festival but as (a time) for shedding blood, » he said.Turkish security fears have been fuelled by bombings which have killed more than 80 people in Ankara and Istanbul this year. Kurdish militants claimed the two suicide bombings in Ankara, though officials blamed Islamic State for a bombing that killed four people in Istanbul on Saturday.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala has said 200,000 members of the security forces are maintaining order across Turkey during Newroz, which is also celebrated in Iran and central Asia.In Turkey this year celebrations have only been allowed in 18 of the country’s 81 provinces due to the security problems.
Oil above $41 as OPEC predicts ‘moderate’ rebound Oil prices dipped slightly in Asia Tuesday but stayed above $41 a barrel as OPEC raised hopes of a moderate rebound from a meeting of key producers in Qatar in April.At around 0400 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in May, a new contract, was five cents down at $41.47. Brent for May dropped seven cents to $41.47.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries secretary-general Abdalla El-Badri said in Vienna on Monday that about 15 or 16 nations will attend discussions on output caps in Doha on Apr 17, but didn’t know whether Iran will join, Bloomberg News reported.El-Badri also said he hopes that prices have « bottomed », adding that he expects crude to enjoy a moderate bounce rather than reach high levels, Bloomberg reported.
The meeting will follow last month’s talks between Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela when they proposed an accord to freeze oil output at January levels.But Sydney-based CMC Markets analyst Michael McCarthy said traders do not expect much from the Qatar meeting. »I would be surprised if many people in the oil market are holding out much hope for this meeting, » he told AFP.
« The levels of trust required to get so many different nations and companies to curtail their production, I don’t think is there. While it may add to the firm tone of the market, I don’t think it is a key driver. »Iran has said it would not join the effort until its own crude production reached pre-sanctions levels of 4.0 million barrels per day, about double its current output.McCarthy added that Monday’s dip could also be due to « holiday shortening » ahead of the long Easter weekend.
« The hectic start we’ve had to the year has left people reaching for the first opportunity to take a bit of a breather, » he said.This follows a buoyant week which lifted WTI above $40 for the first time since December, boosted by a sharp drop in the dollar, which generally makes crude less expensive, and revived optimism that producers would strike a deal to freeze output.
OPEC’s Badri hopes for positive producer meeting in April, says Iran could join group laterIran may join other oil producers planning to freeze production to support prices at a later date, OPEC’s secretary general said on Monday, since the country is seeking to raise its exports.
Producers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-members are due to meet on April 17 in Qatar discuss the output freeze. But Iran is seeking to increase exports, following the lifting of Western sanctions in January. « I hope the result of the meeting will be positive, » Abdullah al-Badri said at a news conference in Vienna. « They are not objecting to the meeting but they have some conditions for the production and maybe in the future they will join the group, » he said of Iran.The comments are a further sign that Iran’s position will not derail a wider agreement on the output freeze. Gulf oil exporters including Saudi Arabia had previously maintained that all major producers should participate.
Badri said he hoped oil prices, which on Monday were trading at above $41 a barrel, up from a 12-year low near $27 in January, had bottomed out and would rise further if a supply overhang could be erased.The « price going up, I hope this trend will continue, » he said. « I don’t expect the price will go high but I think it will go to a moderate level. » « At this time, the only problem I see is the overhang above five-year average of stocks, about 300 million barrels. »If we are able to get rid of this 300 million barrels, the overhang, then the price will come back to normal. » Some OPEC delegates have said further action including a supply cut could follow the freeze deal by the end of the year.Badri, asked if a cut was needed, said it was too early to say. »Let us go to the freeze and see what will happen, then we will talk about any other steps in the future, » he said.
Paris suspect « worth weight in gold » to police -lawyerThe only suspected participant in Nov. 13 Paris attacks to be captured alive has been cooperating with police investigators and is « worth his weight in gold », his lawyer said on Monday.Belgium’s Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the country was on high alert for a possible revenge attack following the capture of 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam in a flat in Brussels on Friday.
« We know that stopping one cell can …push others into action. We are aware of it in this case, » he told public radio.
French investigator Francois Molins told a news conference in Paris on Saturday that Abdeslam, a French citizen born and raised in Brussels, admitted to investigators he had wanted to blow himself up along with others at the Stade de France on the night of the attack claimed by Islamic State; but he later backed out.Abdeslam’s lawyer Sven Mary said he would sue Molins for making the comment public, calling it a violation of judicial confidentiality. Molins, speaking in Brussels on Monday alongside his Belgian counterpart, insisted he had the right to make elements of the inquiry public in an « objective » manner. Mary said Abdeslam, who is fighting extradition to France, was now fully cooperating with investigators. »I think that Salah Abdeslam is of prime importance for this investigation. I would even say he is worth his weight in gold.
He is collaborating. He is communicating. He is not maintaining his right to remain silent, » Mary told Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.As the only suspected participant or planner of the Paris attack in police custody, Abdeslam would be seen by investigators as a possible major source of information on others involved, in support networks, finance and links with Islamic State in Syria. There would also be urgent interest in finding out what further attacks might be planned. Belgian prosecutors said in a statement they were looking for Najim Laachraoui, 25, using the false name of Soufiane Kayal. His DNA had been found in houses in Belgium used by the Paris attackers. Lead Belgian investigator Frederic Van Leeuw told the news conference he was unsure of Laachraoui’s role.
Some media suggested he may have been the group’s « armourer » and Leeuw confirmed he had travelled to Hungary in September in a car rented by Abdeslam and in the company of a third man, who was killed in a shootout with police in Brussels last Tuesday. Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Sunday that Abdeslam may have been plotting more operations drawing on a weapons discovered in the Forest district of Brussels and a network of associates.
Jambon said he could not confirm that, but it was a possibility. »After 18 months of dealing with this terrorist issue, I have learned that when the terrorists and weapons are in the same place, and that’s what we saw in Forest, we are close to an attack. I’m not saying it is evidence. But yes, there are indications, » he said.
Australian schoolgirl faces charge of financing IS A 16-year-old schoolgirl was set to be charged Tuesday with raising money to support the Islamic State group, Australian police said, warning of a « trend of teenage children » involved in such activities.The girl and a 20-year-old man were arrested in the western Sydney suburb of Guildford in the morning and were due to be charged during the day, New South Wales state police Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said.
« We will be alleging that they were involved in obtaining money to send offshore to assist the Islamic State in its activities, » Burn told reporters in Sydney. »The 16-year-old girl is not somebody who is well-known to us, however it is disturbing that we are continuing to see a trend of teenage children involved in activities that they should really not be involved in at all. »
The pair were to face one charge each of getting funds to, from or for a terrorist organisation. The maximum penalty on conviction is 25 years in prison.Burn would not say how much they allegedly collected, but added that a « number of people in this country » were raising money to finance terrorism and then send it offshore.
Federal Police Deputy Commissioner for national security, Michael Phelan, said the alleged fundraising was not linked to any plot of an attack in Australia and there was no immediate threat to the community. Canberra has been increasingly concerned about home-grown extremism and raised the terror threat alert level to high in September 2014.Authorities have conducted a series of counter-terrorism raids in several cities, while the government has passed new national security laws.
Since September 2014, 14 people have been charged under Appleby, a rolling operation investigating people suspected of being involved in domestic acts of terrorism, Australians fighting in Syria and Iraq and the funding of terrorist organisations, Phelan said. Burn said police were working to identify « all those things that might have been involved in her getting to this position ».In December, five people including a 15-year-old boy were charged in Sydney over a terror plot targeting a government building.And in October a civilian police employee was shot dead by a boy, also 15, outside police headquarters in western Sydney. The teenager was killed in an exchange of gunfire.
New migrant system puts fresh strain on Greece’s tight budget An EU deal with Turkey may severely limit an influx of migrants to northern and central European countries, but could place fresh strain on the budget of Greece, the frontline state that is already struggling to rebuild its public finances.
In December, when Greece expected to remain merely a transit country for migrants heading northwest, the central bank put the annual cost at 600 million euros, or about 0.3 percent of national output, well short of the 700 million euros the European Union has promised in aid over three years. Now, though, with countries to the north having shut their borders and a new arrangement in place, it finds itself obliged to host over 50,000 refugees stranded in Greece.
In theory, once it has processed their asylum applications and deported them, most of that burden should go, because the deal is supposed to remove the incentive for the migrants to make the lethal unofficial crossing of the Aegean Sea from Turkey. In practice, more are still arriving – 1,662 in the 24 hours to 7 a.m. on Monday – either unaware of the new arrangement or undeterred by it, with calmer, summer weather to come.
A central bank official told Reuters on Monday that the bank had asked the government to update its estimate of the costs, which also did not take into account collateral damage to tourism, particularly at the frontline islands including Lesbos and Samos. With unemployment at 24 percent and many Greeks in poverty after a deep and prolonged economic depression, Greece is already struggling to meet the terms of the latest of three EU/IMF bailouts that have rescued it from bankruptcy.
If Greece had to pay 600 million euros a year from its own budget, that would translate to about a third of the fiscal savings that Athens is making through pension cuts and tax hikes to satisfy its lenders. »If the foreseen contribution of the European Union turns out to be insufficient, it would result in added pressure on the Greek budget, » the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report on the economy last week.If the crisis intensified, it warned of « severe implications for growth and fiscal balances ».
U.N. refugee chief seeks more money from E.Asia, private donorsThe new United Nations refugee chief said on Monday he was seeking more money from East Asian nations as well as private donors to help cope with major refugee crises in the Middle East and Africa.
« We want to really convince the world that refugee assistance cannot be the responsibility just of the countries that are next to the country at war … or the few, the 10 or 15 donors that give all the money. It is global, » said Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Grandi, who started his job on Jan. 1, said he faced « an unprecedented crisis » and noted the UNHCR’s mandate covered 60 million refugees and displaced people, as well as another 10 million stateless people. The UNHCR – funded mainly by voluntary contributions – is coming under increasing strain as demand for its services far outstrips the money available. »We are telling China and other east Asian countries to follow the example of Japan, which traditionally has been a large donor, » Grandi told a news conference during a visit to Ottawa.
Last year Japan – the fourth-largest UNHCR contributor – gave $173.5 million, compared with just $942,000 for China.South Korea was the second-largest Asian donor, giving $16 million.Grandi also said he was dealing with « a very wealthy person » in Indonesia who wanted to donate and noted good progress with developing a network of private donors.
The UNHCR, he said, wanted traditional backers such as the United States, Canada and Australia to help persuade other nations to give more, especially those who were far away from Middle Eastern and African trouble spots. »Those countries are global economic powers so they have access to information and you just need to translate that into contributions. And I think it’s coming, but it’s not a quick process, » he said.
For refugees eyeing Europe, a website separates fact from fictionD esperately seeking new lives, migrants traveling to Europe often hear lies and rumors such as promises of an escort across a forbidden border or offers of steady work that can steer them in the wrong direction and even endanger their lives. Quashing such falsities is the goal of a nonprofit website that has given itself the task of assisting the waves of migrants traveling the Balkan route to Europe, fleeing war and poverty in their homelands.
The site http://newsthatmoves.org was developed by Internews, an international media development organization, to combat misinformation, particularly that used by smugglers to dupe bewildered or confused migrants. More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond have flooded into the European Union since early last year. Most make a perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, then head north through the Balkans to Germany.
Although several aid agencies and the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees share essential information, Internews’ unique approach tracks and verifies rumors with immediacy. Inaccurate rumors are collected through conversations with refugees, online and through social media, and a weekly rumor-busting bulletin has been published on the website since earlier this year.Translated in English, Arabic, Farsi and Greek, its content is at times recorded and broadcast on megaphones in refugee camps or played on transport buses.
Refugees hear such lies from smugglers as « I’m going to drop you in Athens and then once you get there, it’s all going to be free. You don’t need any money, » said Alison Campbell, an Internews spokeswoman, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Monday. « People were even told that they could get a taxi from Lesbos to Macedonia, even though Lesbos is an island, » she said.While refugees often depend on relatives having done the journey before them for guidance, social media means inaccurate information can spread like wildfire, she said. »People don’t know who to believe, » she said.Smugglers bent on taking people’s money « tell them whatever they want to hear, » she said.
With the political landscape ever changing, plenty of unreliable information is likely to lie ahead for migrants, said R. Daniel Kelemen, a political science professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.A new agreement between the European Union and Turkey designed to close the migration route to Greece could force migrants to have to decipher what is changing for real and what is not, Kelemen said. »That is going to feed a lot of rumors, » he said.
Trump vows strong US ties with Israel, draws fire from Clinton Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday vowed an unbreakable U.S.alliance with Israel if he is elected president in November, seeking to clear up confusion over his repeated pledges to remain neutral in any peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Trump’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, was part of a daylong effort by the anti-Washington candidate to persuade establishment Republicans to get behind his insurgent candidacy and give up on an effort to deny him the party’s presidential nomination. Describing Israel as ready to negotiate a peace agreement, Trump said the Palestinians would have to be willing to accept that Israel will forever exist as a Jewish state and able to stop attacks on Israelis. »The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable, » the New York billionaire businessman said.
Trump has drawn fire for his position on Middle East peace negotiations. He has described himself as extremely pro-Israel, but has said he would take a « neutral » stance in trying to negotiate an elusive peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Trump’s critics have said he could harm long-standing U.S.support for Israel. Trump’s leading Republican rival, U.S.
Senator Ted Cruz, reminded the AIPAC gathering of Trump’s position. »Let me be very, very clear, » Cruz said. « As president I will not be neutral. America will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel. » Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, a former secretary of state, used her AIPAC appearance to attack Trump. »We need steady hands, not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday and who-knows-what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable, » she said.Clinton also took aim at Trump’s vow that, if elected, he would deport illegal immigrants and bar Muslims temporarily from entering the United States.
« If you see bigotry, oppose it, if you see violence, condemn it, if you see a bully, stand up to him, » she said.TRUMP TELLS PEOPLE: « BE SMART » In a rarity, Trump delivered his AIPAC speech with the aid of a TelePrompter, abandoning his typical free-wheeling style.
Throughout the day, his public remarks lacked their usual bombast, an obvious effort to appear more presidential.At a news conference, Trump presented himself as Republicans’ best chances of capturing the White House in the Nov. 8 election. He took steps to appear as the nominee-in-waiting, releasing the names of some foreign policy advisers and pledging to name seven to 10 people he would pick for the Supreme Court.Trump said establishment Republicans would be making a mistake if they persuade a high-profile party leader to launch a third-party run to deny him the White House. He said it would « almost certainly » mean the Democrats would win the presidency.
« If people want to be smart, they should embrace this movement, » Trump said at the site of a new hotel he is building in Washington. « If they don’t want to be smart, they should do what they’re doing now and the Republicans are going to go down to a massive loss. » Trump laid out some foreign policy priorities in a CNN interview, saying the United States is contributing more than it should to the NATO alliance and that he would continue a U.S.
thaw toward Cuba begun by President Barack Obama, who is now in Havana. Trump was in Washington for closed-door talks with a variety of Republicans organized by his top backer in the capital, U.S.Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. It was his most overt bid yet to seek party unity at a time when many establishment Republicans bitterly oppose him.The meeting, held at the offices of the Jones Day law firm, included some Republican lawmakers and a former Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, and former Congressman Bob Livingston.
« We’ve had almost eight years of Mr. Obama, who’s been a disastrous president. We have now an opportunity to change course or have four more years of the same. And I think that Donald Trump is the alternative, » Livingston said after the session.Also at the meeting were Representatives Renee Ellmers of North Carolina and Chris Collins of New York, as well as former Senator Jim DeMint, who is head of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative Washington think-tank.
In a separate session with the Washington Post editorial board, Trump named some members of his foreign policy team.The team included Walid Phares, who Trump called a counter-terrorism expert; George Papadopoulos, an oil and energy consultant; and Joe Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Department of Defense.
Trump’s rise has alarmed establishment Republicans who have tried in vain to stop him. Their best hope of derailing his insurgent candidacy is to stretch the contest out and deny him the 1,237 delegates needed to formally win the party’s presidential nomination.Trump has 678 delegates to 423 for Cruz and 143 for Ohio Governor John Kasich, according to the Associated Press.If Trump does not win the 1,237 delegates, the Republican nominee would be decided at the party’s convention in Cleveland in July.
Clinton criticizes Trump’s neutral stance on Israel peace efforts Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton attacked Republican Donald Trump on Monday for taking a neutral stance toward Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, in a preview of a possible general election battle between them.
On a day Trump was visiting Washington, Clinton told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference that Trump would undermine Israel’s security by taking an evenhanded approach to negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. « America can’t ever be neutral when it comes to Israel’s security and survival, » Clinton told the pro-Israel lobbying group, without mentioning Trump by name. « Anyone who doesn’t understand that has no business being our president. » Trump, the Republican front-runner, was to address the AIPAC conference later in the day, along with his Republican rivals, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Clinton’s Democratic challenger, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was not appearing at the event.
The former reality TV star, who has struggled to win Republican establishment support, held private talks with a group of Republican lawmakers. In a separate session with the Washington Post editorial board, Trump named some members of his foreign policy team.The team included Walid Phares, who Trump called a counterterrorism expert, George Papadopoulos, an oil and energy consultant, and Joe Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Department of Defense.Trump has drawn fire for his position on Middle East peace negotiations. The New York billionaire has described himself as extremely pro-Israel but has said he would take a « neutral » stance in trying to negotiate an elusive peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Trump’s critics have said he could harm long-standing U.S.
support for Israel. Clinton said she would make it a priority if elected to preserve the U.S.-Israeli relationship, ensuring Israel has a qualitative military edge. « We need steady hands, not a president who says he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who-knows-what on Wednesday because everything’s negotiable, » she said.Clinton, a former secretary of state, also took aim at Trump’s vow that, if elected, he would deport illegal immigrants and bar Muslims temporarily from entering the United States.
She noted an incident during the 1930s, when the United States initially refused entry to a shipload of Jews trying to escape Nazi tyranny. « We’ve had dark chapters in our history before, » Clinton said. « We remember the nearly 1,000 Jews aboard the St. Louis who were refused entry in 1939 and sent back to Europe. But America should be better than this. And I believe it is our responsibility to say so. »If you see bigotry, oppose it, if you see violence, condemn it, if you see a bully, stand up to him, » she said.Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the New York-based organization representing roughly 1.5 million American Jews, praised Clinton for her command of the issues. He said he hoped Trump had prepared a speech that revealed specific policy goals as well as a coherent philosophy of the U.S. role in the Middle East.
« It’s as complex as neurosurgery, » he said. « I will be listening very carefully to what he says and what he doesn’t say. Can he put forward a very clear set of commitments that will help us understand him? » Trump was in Washington for closed-door talks with a variety of Republicans organized by his top backer in the capital, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. It represented his most overt bid yet to seek party unity at a time when many establishment Republicans bitterly oppose him.The meeting, at the law offices of Jones Day, included some Republican lawmakers who have backed him, such as U.S.
Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina. None of the congressional Republican leadership attended. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich attended. »Donald Trump Is being discounted by the elites as a candidate for office, just like I was in 2010, » Ellmers said in a statement.Trump also planned a news conference at the hotel he is building at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Trump’s rise has alarmed establishment Republicans who have tried in vain to stop him. Their best hope of derailing his insurgent candidacy is to stretch the contest out and deny him the 1,237 delegates needed to formally win the party’s presidential nomination.Trump has 678 delegates to 423 for Cruz and 143 for Kasich, according to the Associated Press.
If Trump does not win the 1,237 delegates, the nominee for the Nov. 8 election would be decided at the party’s convention in Cleveland. Despite the possibility of turmoil at the July 18-21 event, Republican Party Committee Chairman Reince Preibus predicted a « fun » convention.Priebus, on CNN, shrugged off Trump’s comment last week that riots would break out if he is denied the nomination. »It’ll be fine, and I guarantee you we’ll have a good time, and it’ll be a fun convention in Cleveland, » Priebus said.
Obama spars with Cuba’s Castro over human rights in historic visit U.S. President Barack Obama pushed Cuba to improve human rights during his historic visit to the Communist-led island on Monday, publicly sparring with President Raul Castro who showed flashes of anger and hit back at U.S. « double standards ».
Obama praised Castro for openly discussing their differences but he said a « full flowering » of the relationship would happen only with progress on the issue of rights. »In the absence of that, I think it will continue to be a very powerful irritant, » Obama said in a joint news conference with Castro that began with jokes but was tense at times. « America believes in democracy. We believe that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion are not just American values but are universal values, » he said.Both men’s remarks were broadcast live on Cuban state television from Cuba’s Palace of the Revolution in a room draped with the Stars and Stripes and the Cuban flag.
Castro countered that no country meets all international rights but appeared uncomfortable as he made the rare step of taking questions from journalists in a country where the media is state controlled.Obama, the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years, agreed in 2014 to improve relations with the former Cold War foe but he is under pressure at home to push Castro’s government to allow political dissent and to further open its Soviet-style economy.
He said the two sides would hold talks on human rights in Havana later this year.
Opponents say Obama has given away too much as he improves ties, with too little from Castro in return, although the leading Republican candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election, Donald Trump, said on Monday he would likely continue to normalize ties with Cuba if elected.Castro, an army general who became president when his ailing older brother Fidel retired in 2008, had never before taken questions from foreign reporters on live Cuban television and was clearly irritated when asked about political prisoners in Cuba, demanding the reporter produce a list of those in jail.
« Tell me now. What political prisoners? Give me a name, or the names, » Castro said. « And if there are these political prisoners they will be free before nightfall. » Cuba says it has no political prisoners and that the dozens listed by dissident groups are instead common criminals.Castro said Cuba has a strong record on rights such as health, access to education and women’s equality. His government criticizes the United States on racism, police violence and the use of torture at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Ben Rhodes, a senior Obama aide, later insisted that Cuba has political prisoners and said the U.S. government had shared lists of them with Cuba. He said Cuba has shifted from long prisons terms to short-term detentions of political opponents.
Later in the evening, Castro sat between Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for a dinner of rum flavored soup and pork, at a table that also included the leaders’ top advisers.Obama’s ease with reporters’ questions contrasted with Castro’s manner. The tension was palpable as Castro declined to call on a slew of Cuban journalists who yearned for the rare chance to ask him questions.Fumbling with a headset providing translation, the 84-year-old leader scolded reporters when he was asked again about rights, saying he agreed to only take one question.
Obama playfully encouraged him to address a second but Castro seemed reluctant as he obliged. »How many countries comply with all 61 human rights? Do you know? I do. None. None, » Castro said.In another awkward moment, as the news conference ended, Castro lifted Obama’s arm in the air as if to form a victory salute. Obama resisted, letting his hand hang limp rather than form a fist.
As part of the diplomatic breakthrough in 2014, Cuba released 53 prisoners that the U.S. government considered political prisoners. But the dissident Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation says 79 are still behind bars, among about 40 held for peaceful political protest. »This list is here if they want to see it, » commission leader Elizardo Sanchez said on Monday.
His list also includes armed anti-government militants, convicted hijackers, army deserters and spies, but Sanchez said they are political because they were denied due process.Castro offered Cuba’s recipe for better relations, saying the United States needs to lift its 54-year-old trade embargo on the island and hand back the Guantanamo Bay base to Cuba.Obama did not respond to the demand on Guantanamo Bay but said he was optimistic about the elimination of sanctions against Cuba. »The embargo’s going to end. When, I can’t be entirely sure, » Obama said.
Obama efforts to encourage Congress to rescind the embargo has been rejected by the Republican leadership. Thwarted, Obama has instead used executive authority to loosen restrictions on trade and travel.Obama said direct flights from the United States would start this year. He said regular tourism to Cuba could happen « very soon, » in comments to U.S. network ABC.A clutch of deals timed to coincide with the visit appeared to show the strategy was bearing commercial fruit, notably U.S.
cruise company Carnival’s announcement on Monday that it would sail the first ship from the United States to Cuba in more than 50 years, in a deal that will bring in thousands of U.S.tourists at a time.About a dozen major U.S. brands have stuck deals or are in talks with Cuba. Ahead of the meeting with Castro, Obama said Google would provide more Wi-Fi and broadband access on the island. Google said later its efforts were in the « early stages. »
GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks fall, dollar gains on Fed comments Global equity markets slipped on Monday as the dollar moved higher and U.S. Treasury yields rose on bullish inflation projections from two Federal Reserve officials. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said U.S. inflation is likely to accelerate in coming years and move toward the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target while San Francisco Fed President John Williams told Market News International he would advocate for another interest rate hike as early as the April meeting.
« There were some hawkish comments from a couple of Fed officials, on the margin pointing to the potential for the Fed to continue with their new path of normalization, » said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital in Stamford, Connecticut.Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart is set to speak on the economic outlook and monetary policy at 1240 EDT (1640 GMT).
The dollar rose 0.16 percent to 95.234 against a basket of major currencies. The greenback had fallen for three straight weeks, a decline of 3.1 percent.The dollar fell last week when U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers revised down the number of times they expect to raise interest rates this year to two from four. Benchmark 10-year notes were last down 10/32 in price to yield 1.9067 percent, up from 1.87 percent on Friday.The stronger dollar weighed on European equities, with the pan-European FTSEurofirst stock index down 0.5 percent at the start of a week shortened by the Easter break.
U.S. stocks also dipped slightly, with investors looking for fresh catalysts after a five-week rally that pushed the S&P 500 into positive territory for the year.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 42.33 points, or 0.24 percent, to 17,559.97, the S&P 500 lost 5.52 points, or 0.27 percent, to 2,044.06 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 8.80 points, or 0.18 percent, to 4,786.84.
MSCI’s index of world shares was 0.36 percent lower.
Crude oil prices were weaker, but off early lows, with Brent last down 0.1 percent to $41.16 and WTI down 0.08 percent at $39.47 a barrel as the market digested news of a modest rise in U.S. drilling activity. Uncertainty lingered, however, over the outcome of a meeting of the world’s major exporters next month to discuss freezing output.Gold fell 0.78 percent at $1,244.96 an ounce as the dollar advanced, its third straight decline, but the metal was underpinned by expectations that the ultra-low interest rate environment will persist on a global level.
Copper edged up 0.19 percent to $5,051.50 a tonne on expectations of stronger demand in top consumer China after a jump in imports of refined copper by the world’s second-largest economy.Sterling fell 0.73 percent to $1.4373 as worries about Prime Minister David Cameron’s ability to keep his Conservative party together and keep Britain in the European Union jumped after Iain Duncan Smith, a leading voice for the UK to exit the EU, resigned from the cabinet late on Friday.
GLOBAL MARKETS-Asian shares edge lower as Fed rate talk revives Asian stocks slipped on Tuesday as hawkish comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials clouded the monetary policy outlook less than a week after Fed Chair Janet Yellen had set out a more cautious path to interest rate increases this year. The dollar got a mild boost from the suggestion that interest rate hikes could be on the way sooner rather than later.Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said the central bank might be in line for a rate hike as soon as April, as policymakers’ decision to hold rates steady last week was more about ensuring that recent global financial volatility had settled down.
San Francisco Fed President John Williams told Market News International he would advocate another hike as early as April, and Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said U.S. inflation is likely to accelerate in the coming years and move toward the Fed’s 2 percent target.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged down 0.1 percent, after all three U.S.
stock indexes posted small gains overnight.Japan’s Nikkei stock index added 2.1 percent, reopening after a public holiday on Monday and getting a tailwind from a weaker yen. »People who bought the yen and sold stocks last week seem to be unwinding their positions, » said Takuya Takahashi, a strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
The dollar nursed losses last week after the Fed halved its outlook for interest rate increases to two from four by the end of this year and said an uncertain global outlook posed risks to the U.S. economy. The latest round of official Fed remarks allowed the greenback to take back some of that lost ground.
The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. unit against a basket of six major rival currencies, added 0.1 percent to 95.417.The dollar rose 0.1 percent against the yen to 112.11 , pulling well away from Thursday’s 17-month low of 110.67.The euro edged down slightly to $1.1237, moving away from last week’s one-month peak of $1.1342.
Sterling inched higher but remained pressured by concerns about Prime Minister David Cameron’s ability to keep Britain in the European Union after leading ‘Out’ campaigner Iain Duncan Smith resigned from the cabinet late on Friday.Sterling was last buying $1.4374, well below Friday’s one-month high of $1.4514. »A bit of internal party bickering doesn’t normally impact sterling but this time it has because of the possible implications for Brexit, » Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets, said in a note.
U.S. crude prices dipped after gaining overnight on data showing a drawdown at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub.Prices fell about 0.3 percent to $41.40 a barrel after rising 1.19 percent in the previous session. Brent fell 0.4 percent to $41.36 after settling up 0.8 percent on Monday.Spot gold was steady at $1,243.30 an ounce after logging three losing sessions.
U.S. says it may not need Apple to open San Bernardino iPhone U.S. prosecutors said Monday that a « third party » had presented a possible method for opening an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, a development that could bring an abrupt end to the high-stakes legal showdown between the government and Apple Inc.A federal judge in Riverside, California, late Monday agreed to the government’s request to postpone a hearing scheduled for Tuesday so that prosecutors could try the newly discovered technique. The Justice Department said it would update the court on April 5.
The government had insisted until Monday that it had no way to access the phone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the two killers in the December massacre in San Bernardino, California, except to force Apple to write new software that would disable the password protection.The Justice Department last month obtained a court order directing Apple to create that software, but Apple has fought back, arguing that the order is an overreach by the government and would undermine computer security for everyone.
The announcement on Monday that an unnamed third party had presented a way of breaking into the phone on Sunday – just two days before the hearing and after weeks of heated back-and-forth in court filings – drew skepticism from many in the tech community who have insisted that there were other ways to get into the phone.
« From a purely technical perspective, one of the most fragile parts of the government’s case is the claim that Apple’s help is required to unlock the phone, » said Matt Blaze, a professor and computer security expert at the University of Pennsylvania. « Many in the technical community have been skeptical that this is true, especially given the government’s considerable resources. » Former prosecutors and lawyers supporting Apple said the move suggested that the Justice Department feared it would lose the legal battle, or at minimum would be forced to admit that it had not tried every other way to get into the phone. In a statement, the Justice Department said its only interest has always been gaining access to the information on the phone and that it had continued to explore alternatives even as litigation began. It offered no details on the new technique but said it was « cautiously optimistic » it would work.
« That is why we asked the court to give us some time to explore this option, » a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Melanie R. Newman, said. « If this solution works, it will allow us to search the phone and continue our investigation into the terrorist attack that killed 14 people and wounded 22 people. » It would also likely end the case without a legal showdown that many had expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
No water, no jobs How water shortages threaten jobs and growth An estimated three out of four jobs globally are dependent on water, meaning that shortages and lack of access are likely to limit economic growth in the coming decades, the United Nations said on Tuesday.About 1.5 billion people – half the world’s workers – are employed in industries heavily dependent on water, most of them in farming, fisheries and forestry, the U.N. World Water Development Report 2016 said.
« There is a direct effect on jobs worldwide if there are disruptions in water supply through natural causes, such as droughts, or if water doesn’t get to communities because of infrastructure problems, » said Richard Connor, the report’s editor-in-chief.
Research has shown investment in small-scale projects providing access to safe water and basic sanitation in Africa could offer a return equivalent to almost 5 percent of the continent’s economic output, the report said. In the United States, every $1 million invested in the country’s water supply and treatment infrastructure generates between 10 and 20 additional jobs, according to the report. »Whether it’s a water treatment facility or a system to bring water to fields to irrigate, you’re not just funding that project, » Connor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
« You’re creating a multiplier effect: jobs are being created because water becomes available. » Fleur Anderson, global head of campaigns at charity Water Aid, said the high cost of water in many developing countries also affects jobs and economic choices. In Papua New Guinea, for example, poor people have to spend 54 percent of their day’s earnings to buy 50 litres of water, the amount the World Health Organization says a person needs every day for domestic use and to maintain health and hygiene.This compares with as little as 0.1 percent of the income of someone earning the minimum wage in Britain.
« It means countries are not getting the economic benefits of their working population because people are spending so much of their money on water, » Anderson said.Demand for water is expected to increase by 2050 as the world’s population is forecast to grow by one-third to more than 9 billion, according to the United Nations.This in turn will lead to a 70 percent increase in demand for food, putting more pressure on water through farming, which is already the biggest consumer of water.
As climate change contributes to rising sea levels and extreme weather, at least one in four people will live in a country with chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water by 2050, the United Nations estimates, making it more important to focus on expanding rainwater harvesting and recycling wastewater.Connor said funding for projects was still often based on « investment in pumps and pipes » rather than a more holistic view, taking into account water’s key role in building a sustainable economy as part of the new global development goals.More investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind, which use very little water, is also crucial in reducing demand for water, Connor said.
France’s top wines face climate ‘tipping point’Climate change has pushed French wines into uncharted territory, and could force producers to relocate, or abandon the grapes that helped to make their vineyards famous, scientists said Monday. Since 1980, growing conditions in northern climes such as Champagne and Burgundy, as well as in sun-drenched Bordeaux, have fundamentally changed the « harvest equation » that defined these storied regions, they reported in Nature Climate Change.
« For much of France, local climates have been relatively stable for hundreds or thousands of years, » said Elizabeth Wolkovich, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University and co-author of the study. « But that is shifting with climate change, » she told AFP.Many ingredients go into great winemaking: soil, grape variety, slope, exposure to the Sun, along with savoir faire in the vineyards and the cellar.
But exceptional vintages have historically also required an early harvest produced by abundant spring rains, hot summers, and a late-season drought. Droughts helped heighten temperatures just enough to bring in the harvest a few weeks early, said lead author Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City and lead author of the study.
It is « basic physics at work, » he explained.
In ordinary years, the daily evaporation of moisture from soil has a cooling effect. A Indian summer makes the soil dryer — less evaporation means a warmer soil surface.Since about 1980, however, this last element of the equation has largely vanished, the study found. »Now, it’s become so warm thanks to climate change, grape growers don’t need drought to get these very warm temperatures, » Cook said.
That, he added, is a « fundamental shift in the large-scale climate under which other, local factors operate. »Using meticulous records dating back to 1600, Cook and Wolkovich found harvest dates have moved up by two full weeks since 1980 compared to the average for the preceding 400 years.For France as a whole, temperatures have warmed by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the 20th Century, and the mercury is still rising.
In the short term, that has produced some « grands millesimes, » the French term for stand-out years. For Bordeaux, 1990, 2005 and 2010 have all been described as once-a-century vintages, while in Burgundy 2005 and 2009 are said to hold exceptional promise.But in the long run — measured in decades — these conditions may evolve into something far less favourable, the study warned.
« If we keep warming, the globe will reach a tipping point, » said Wolkovich, pointing to what happened in 2003. During that summer, the thermometer climbed past 40C (104F) on half-a-dozen days in the Bordeaux region in early August. »That may be a good indicator of where we are headed, » she added. « If we keep pushing the heat up, vineyards can’t maintain that forever. »
In France, signature grape varietals — pinot noir in Burgundy, and Merlot in Bordeaux — will no longer be as well-adapted. Instead, southern England could become the new Champagne, with better climate conditions for Chardonnay.In other wine-producing regions such as California and Australia, the solution may be to find new « terroir » better suited to these famous grapes.
In France, however, it may not be so simple.French wines such as Champagne, Sauternes, Margaux or Saint-Emilion are grown only in authorised areas and according to rules about which grape varieties can be used in what proportions.For many wine-makers, changing these rules is tantamount to changing the identity of the wine.
World’s longest aircraft readies for first flight in BritainThe world’s longest aircraft, an airship spanning more than six double-decker buses, is set to make its maiden flight later this Spring, British manufacturer Hybrid Air Vehicles said on Monday.
The 92-metre Airlander 10 floated in a hangar in Cardington, central England, at a media event where its backers showcased a vessel they said could stay airborne for up to two weeks.Hybrid Air Vehicles is hoping the slow-moving, helium-filled Airlander 10 will catch the eye of potential customers who might want to use it to carry cargo or deliver aid, for surveillance, communications or leisure purposes. It can carry 48 passengers.
The Airlander can take off and land vertically meaning it does not need a tarmac runway. It can also operate from open fields, deserts, ice or water, meaning it could be useful for humanitarian missions or coastguard monitoring.Airships have a long history stretching back to the nineteenth century, although their use was curtailed by competition from aeroplanes in the twentieth century and high-profile accidents such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.Hybrid Air Vehicles is a privately-held firm funded so far by 17.5 million pounds ($25.2 million) raised from 1,000 shareholders, and which has benefited from U.S. investment and British and EU grants.
It will undertake additional ground testing before a first flight in the coming months.The airship could then become a familiar sight over the central English countryside as it aims to complete 200 hours of test flights before demonstrations to would-be customers.Hybrid Air Vehicles hopes to be building 12 of the airships a year by 2018.
Qatar may house World Cup fans in Bedouin-style tents Qatar may house thousands of football fans in Bedouin-style tents in desert areas close to stadiums during the 2022 World Cup as tumbling oil prices have forced the tiny Gulf state to delay projects, including building hotels. Most of the expected 500,000 fans are expected to stay in hotels and apartments but contrary to Qatar’s World Cup bid in 2010, when it said it would create more than 55,000 rooms, authorities said in January that 46,000 rooms would be ready.FIFA’s requirement was for 60,000 rooms to be available.Organisers are holding up the tent idea as a creative and culturally authentic way for Qatar to meet FIFA requirements.
« At the heart of this World Cup is a commitment to showcase the hospitality and friendship of the Middle East. As a result, we are actively researching the concept of supporters sleeping under the stars, » a spokesperson for Qatar’s World Cup Supreme Committee told Reuters without giving further details.
Since winning its bid, Qatar has spent tens of billions of dollars on upgrading infrastructure and has built scores of hotels and apartment complexes but some projects have stalled including a $12 billion bridge and underwater tunnel link across Doha bay and building at least two hotels in the capital. A Supreme Committee spokesperson said Qatar was on track to deliver the minimum number of hotel rooms required by FIFA.Desert camping, a popular winter activity popular for Qataris, who are known for assembling luxurious sites among the sand dunes, could also help allay concerns about thin occupancy after the event, analysts say.The Supreme Committee did not say if the camps would serve as the specially created « fanzones » in which conservative Muslim Qatar has said fans will be allowed to consume alcohol.Public drinking of alcohol is banned in Qatar, which also limits the sale of alcohol primarily to luxury hotels.
Qatar is still debating how to best balance the country’s cultural values with FIFA’s requirements for the tournament.Qatar is also looking at promoting private letting services such as Airbnb and putting up spectators on cruise ships docked along the coast, a government official said.If fans choose to stay in neighboring countries, such as the UAE and Bahrain – where hotel rooms and alcohol may be more readily available – and fly in to watch matches, that could further reduce a potential strain on accomodation.
Some Qataris are critical of the furious pace at which World Cup construction is happening. »In the past five years the number of hotel rooms has doubled, now they are looking at doubling them again, » one former Qatari diplomat said. « People are asking: ‘How sustainable is this?’, ‘Once the cup is over what do we, as Qataris, really need with all these hotels?' »
(World news summary compiled by Maghreb news staff)