Attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa

From IRIN, a human rights organization sheds light on the treatment of foreigners in South Africa.

Foreign nationals are being attacked with "impunity" in South Africa, a leading human rights organization charged as the latest service delivery protests turned violent and several hundred residents turned their anger on Ethiopian refugees living in Siyathemba township, about 80km east of Johannesburg.

Service delivery protests erupted on 7 February in Siyathemba, a satellite township of Balfour, a rural town in Mpumalanga Province. Shops owned by foreign nationals were looted, more than 100 people, including women and children fled the township, and police arrested 22 people for public violence, according to reports.

Similar acts of xenophobia took place during service delivery protests eight months ago in the same township, when the perpetrators were also arrested but charges of public violence were subsequently dropped.

"Many of those affected by the violence ... were also victims of violence in July 2009, where the shops of foreign nationals were targeted following service delivery protests and around 100 people were displaced. Those who laid criminal charges relating to the violence and the damages were later intimidated into dropping these," the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in Southern Africa (CORMSA), said in a statement.

Amnesty International, a global rights watchdog, said in a statement: "There remains a culture of impunity for crimes against refugees and migrants [in South Africa]. There persists also low public awareness of the country's human rights obligations towards refugees and others in need of international protection."

Service delivery protests have become frequent in the post-apartheid era, and although most are peaceful demonstrations demanding that government fulfil their commitments to improve the lives of the majority, some spill over into violence and more often than not result in xenophobic violence.

Duncan Breen, CORMSA's advocacy officer, told IRIN that "issues of governance" often fuelled community frustrations, which could lead to outbreaks of xenophobic violence.

He said civil society and the police were developing early warning systems to provide an intelligence network of possible xenophobic outbreaks and/or violence, and government was establishing a national action plan to protect vulnerable people against xenophobia, which would fall under the aegis of the justice department.

Broken promises

In August 2009, President Jacob Zuma and a host of ministers descended unannounced on Balfour and Siyathemba in the aftermath of the violent service delivery protests and deplored the xenophobic violence, which was seen as a commitment by Zuma and his new government to provide service delivery in disadvantaged communities.

"Places like Balfour, which seem to be very remote - that's the places I'm going to be going to, unannounced, all the time, to get to know what are the problems, why didn't we deliver certain things," Zuma said during his visit.

"The ministers, together with the provincial and local leadership, agreed on short-, medium- and long-term interventions, which should begin to address challenges and concerns of communities," said a statement issued by his office after the visit.

The presidency undertook to alleviate poverty, support community projects, generate employment, build 100 homes "within the current financial year [which ends on 28 Feb 2010]" and improve transport infrastructure, among other things.

Tebogo Moagi, a member of the community steering committee and an organizer of the service delivery protest, told local media that the presidency's promises were empty.

The committee has demanded that Zuma return to the township to explain the government's inaction. "Since the protest [in July 2009] nothing has happened. We have had no response from the municipality," Moagi said.

Zuma is unlikely to accede to their demands; he is currently in Cape Town preparing for the opening of parliament on 11 February - which will also mark the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from jail - and has maintained a low profile since it emerged 10 days ago that he had fathered a daughter out of wedlock, now four months old.

In the first six weeks of 2010 foreigners were also attacked in Atteridgeville near Pretoria, Riviersonderend in the Western Cape, and Polokwane in Limpopo Province. Xenophobic violence erupted throughout South Africa in 2008, killing at least 62 people and displacing 100,000 others.

An update on recovery from 2008's Cyclone Nargis

From the Voice of America, the United Nations says that there are some successes in the recovery efforts from Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma in 2008.

A United Nations report on Burma's recovery from Cyclone Nargis says progress has been achieved in key areas such as child development and health care. But communities in the Irrawaddy Delta still struggle to sustain their livelihoods and rebuild homes lost in the 2008 storm.

The report issued Tuesday provides an upbeat assessment of recovery in the Irrawaddy Delta less than two years after Cyclone Nargis swept through the region in May 2008.

Cyclone Nargis left up to 140,000 people dead or missing. Over two million people were affected by the storm. Total losses were estimated at over $4 billion.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Burma's military government and the United Nations formed the Tripartite Core Group shortly after the storm to assess and coordinate the recovery effort.

The group's latest survey covered 1,400 households, and particularly focused on the most vulnerable, such as landless families and those headed by women.

The survey reported improvements in child mortality, and child nutrition, as well as greater access to health care and clean water.

Esben Harboe, a special assistant in the office of the U.N.'s resident coordinator in Burma, says the survey shows despite the gains, there is still much to do.

"The key message is progress is evident but there's still a lot more to do in terms of recovery and especially within two areas, which is [are] livelihood and shelter. These are the areas where the respondents in the survey said that they still need assistance," said Harboe.

The survey found that 50 percent of the shelters surveyed were judged to be safe, but over 80 percent of surveyed households considered their homes to be of poorer quality than before the cyclone.

Harboe says the delta region still faces challenges because of its lack of development and poverty. Burma is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia.

"It's very positive we can record improvements within a number of areas but there's still - even it is back to a pre-Nargis situation - pre-Nargis it was very bad. So it's not to say that there's nothing more to do even if it's back to normal so to speak," said Harboe.

A reconstruction plan by the United Nations, ASEAN and Burma's military government has called for $690 million in aid. Aid workers have also say that additional international funds will be needed to fully rebuild Irrawaddy Delta communities.

Burma's isolated military government originally refused and blocked most foreign aid after the massive cyclone. It took the intervention of the United Nations and ASEAN to persuade the military to allow in foreign aid workers and donated supplies.

The need is still immense in Haiti

Haiti is beginning to fade from the top headlines, and that is a big concern for the people rebuilding the country. The chaotic aid efforts just prior to the earthquake are starting to see more challenges and needs throughout the country are still at a high level.

The many amputees that the earthquake caused have been left to handle their new life on their own, many without crutches. Also, new health issues are arising daily due to the lack of sanitation, and there is no plan with what to with all the people who have been without shelter for a month.

From The Washington Post writer Peter Slevin gives us this update.

Pressure will grow on a fledgling food distribution network backed by U.S. soldiers that so far has largely managed to deliver only rice. From surgery to shelter to sanitation to schooling, the needs are vast and the international commitment unproven.

"The need is so overwhelming. You can't have an initial push, and then it stops. That just won't be enough," Lane Hartill, an Africa-based Catholic Relief Services staff member, said as he walked toward a sweltering encampment of 30,000 people who have spent every hour outdoors since the Jan. 12 earthquake. In the distance, the dun-colored shapes of the makeshift shelters might have been an impressionist painter's rendering of despair.

The sadness is sometimes suffocating, yet the agony of last month's earthquake is being overtaken by the urgency of now. Every day, tens of thousands of Haitians face a grueling quest to find food, any food. A nutritious diet is out of the question.
No shelter, no jobs

Shelter is a slender part of the equation because, for those who lost their homes, there is so little shelter to seek. Hundreds of people join lines before the early dawn in hopes of scoring a sack of white rice, but there is nowhere to line up for a tent, a shelter kit or a home any sturdier than a blanket hanging from a clothesline.

Hardly anyone is being paid. For the vast majority, a daily job is out of the question. Every school in the capital is closed, an estimated 75 percent of them destroyed. Many businesses and government offices simply no longer exist. There is no postal service -- and if there were, much of the Port-au-Prince population would not be found at home.

The medical calamity has moved beyond the horrific early days of assembly line amputations. Overwhelmed doctors and nurses are now facing converging streams of need, from untended wounds and the illnesses born of poor sanitation to the ailments of a population that had inferior health care long before Jan. 12.

There are not enough crutches for amputees or people to teach them how to adjust to the physics of their new bodily dimensions. The demands for treatment of all kinds, including postoperative care and rehabilitation, are "massive," said Thomas Kirsch, a Johns Hopkins University physician and disaster expert working here with the International Medical Corps.

"We're seeing as many as 500 people a day in our dinky little health-care center," Kirsch said, after spending a 10-hour shift doing triage in the courtyard of the state university hospital. "We send paralyzed patients out with their families and say, 'Good luck.' "

Oxfam asks: Why is Haiti poor?

In the media coverage that has followed the earthquake in Haiti, many stories have asked, why is Haiti so poor to begin with? Answers to this question range from past dictatorships to deep debts the country has suffered since it's independence.

From Oxfam blogs, writer Chris Hufstader has this good roundup of sources that help us to answer this question. We have attempted to preserve the links that Hufstader references in our snippet below.

Economist Tyler Cowen offers a few theories in his blog Marginal Revolution. (Thanks to Yale economist Chris Blattman for the reference.) Cowen proposes the historic (premature independence), financial (huge debt to France that took 100 years to pay off following the revolution), agricultural (ways of growing coffee and sugar cane). And of course, there is the political (the Duvalier clan wrecked Haiti). Cowen concludes that he is not particularly satisfied with any of these reasons.

As the weeks have gone by, there has been more and more revealing analysis of this question in the media. Other reasons for poverty in Haiti include macroeconomic decisions: As Haiti expert Bob Maguire pointed out on National Public Radio last week, the US and other countries encouraged Haiti to build factories, but did not invest in agriculture and education at the same time. This attempt at the “Taiwanization” of Haiti—as Maguire calls it—failed.

Trade liberalization has a direct impact on poverty in Haiti. Rice growers in particular bore the brunt of trade policy, which we cited in our research report “Kicking Down the Door” in 2005:

“In 1995 the IMF forced Haiti to cut its rice tariff from 35 per cent to 3 per cent, with the result that imports increased by more than 150 per cent between 1994 and 2003. Today, three out of every four plates of rice eaten in Haiti come from the USA. This is good news for Riceland Foods of Arkansas, the biggest rice mill in the world. Riceland’s profits jumped by $123m from 2002 to 2003, thanks, in large part, to a 50 per cent increase in exports, primarily to Haiti and Cuba. But it has devastated farmers in Haiti, where rice-growing areas now have some of the highest levels of malnutrition and poverty.”

A fishy sex trade in Kenya

From IRIN, a group of women are organizing against a Kenyan sex trade, but find that poverty is not only the sex trade's cause it also keeps them from fighting it.

If you were a fishmonger in Kisumu, a city on Lake Victoria in western Kenya, you would have to sleep with the fishermen to get stock to sell so you could make a living. A year ago Lucy Agoya got fed up with the practice and rallied a few women to take a stand against it.

So far the group has only attracted 28 members. "Many tell me my work is like rain in a lake - it has no value ... Selling fish here makes money, and I know many women say they would rather have sex and have the money than not do it and remain poor," Agoya told IRIN/PlusNews.

"Many women selling fish have died of HIV and many are sick; we have been living at the mercy of fishermen who demand sex before they can give you fish. We have resolved to only buy fish with money and not with our bodies."

The widespread practise of exchanging sexual favours for fish, known as 'jaboya', has been associated with the high HIV prevalence in Nyanza Province, where the fish in Lake Victoria are the main source of income for more than 286,000 fishermen, fish traders and processors, boat builders and net manufacturers, and a host of other people in fish-related activities.

A 2008 Modes of (HIV) Transmission Study, put prevalence in the fishing communities at between 25 and 30 percent, nearly double Nyanza's average infection rate of 15.3, which was twice the national average.

The study also found that fishing communities were not being adequately covered by national HIV programmes, but those implemented so far seem to have had little impact.

"We have in place programmes ... that educate the fishing community on the benefits of condom use, having one partner, and the male circumcision programme," said Dr Charles Okal, provincial control officer for AIDS and sexually transmitted infections.

"We also support the approach of offering alternative means of earning income for women; I know the programmes in place addressing the problem will succeed, but it needs time."

Grinding poverty

Okal acknowledged that poverty was the biggest obstacle to ending jaboya; more than half of Nyanza's people live on less than a dollar a day.

"I have children to feed and take to school, and I also have rent to pay; selling fish is the only business I know ... if having sex with a fisherman will make it easier, let it be," said Mary Owenga, a single mother whose four children were fathered by different fishermen. "I know when I am old they will not want me; because I still look like a girl, let me use the opportunity."

Eliud Mboya, who started working as a fisherman when he finished high school four years ago, said there was little chance that jaboya would be eradicated any time soon.

"We do not force these women into having sex with us - it is a willing seller, willing buyer kind of thing. A man gives you fish, which is hard to come by these days, and further treats you to a dance in the evening with his money, just for having sex with him," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "Now tell me, what could be more attractive than that? Tell people to use condoms, but don't tell them, 'don't sleep with these people'."

Jennifer Kere, director of Women in Fishing Industry Project Trust, a local NGO, commented: "Many of the women fishmongers are single mothers and some are widows providing for their families - at times they take fish on credit, putting them at the mercy of the fishermen who use this opportunity to demand sexual favours."

She said female fishmongers often had little choice. "I believe that educating them to start other businesses alongside selling fish can help, because selling fish really doesn't have to be a matter of life and death. It is not easy for them to resist the appeal of easy money, but with time it might succeed."

A warning against buying "blood diamonds"

With Valentine's Day coming up, a lot of men are thinking of buying diamond rings to pop the big marriage proposal question on the romantic day. The group Global Witness reminds would-be buyers to ask merchants where the diamonds come from, to ensure that they are not buying "blood diamonds".

From Global Witness, we read more about "blood diamonds" from this press release.

Diamonds mined illegally in conflict zones are still finding their way onto the international market and being sold in cities such as London, New York and Paris. The continued existence of so-called ‘blood diamonds' poses a serious problem for consumers looking to demonstrate their love with a diamond ring this Valentines Day (Feb 14).

Proposing on Valentines Day is a hard one to get right. Roughly 10% of all marriage proposals are made on the big day, but 80% of those on the receiving end feel that this betrays a lack of imagination. And they're the lucky ones - a recent survey in the US showed that 15% of women send themselves flowers on Valentines Day.

The last thing anyone with the conviction to make it as far as the jewellers needs is added anxiety about who might have suffered to produce their ring. So Global Witness is encouraging consumers to demand that jewellers provide more information about where their products are sourced.

"Consumer pressure will be vital to ensure that the diamond industry finally acts to eliminate conflict diamonds once and for all," said Elly Harrowell, campaigner at Global Witness. "Some progress has been made in recent years but the unpalatable truth is that around the world civilians are still suffering terribly as a consequence of the diamond trade."

In 2003, following a global outcry about the problem of conflict diamonds, an international certification scheme was established to monitor the trade. Countries who signed up to the Kimberley Process were obliged to demonstrate that their diamonds were not bankrolling brutality and conflict.

The scheme set an important precedent and has helped diminish the trade in conflict diamonds. However loop holes, poor regulation, and problems with implementation mean that consumers cannot place full faith in it. One significant challenge currently facing the scheme is the case of Zimbabwe, which despite evidence of widespread human rights abuses and military presence in mines, remains a member and continues to export diamonds.

"Kimberley Process members need to get serious about stamping out the systematic abuse of civilians in countries like Zimbabwe, otherwise the credibility of the whole scheme will be undermined" said Harrowell. "They will be more inclined to act if they hear a strong message from retailers and consumers that continued links with such violence will no longer be tolerated."

Consumers can also put pressure on retailers to do their bit by ensuring every link in the diamonds supply chain is stringently checked from mine to shop floor. Questions consumers can ask include:

* Do you know where the diamonds you sell come from?
* Can I see a copy of your company's policy on conflict diamonds?
* Can you show me a written guarantee from your suppliers that your diamonds are conflict free?
* How is the supply chain audited?

/ Ends

Contact: Amy Barry on +44 2074925858 or Elly Harrowell on +44 2074925888

Notes

* Global Witness has been campaigning on blood diamonds for 12 years. We are observer members of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. In 2003 we were co-nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for our work on conflict diamonds
* Sources for Valentines Day statistics: Diamond Information Centre, US Census Bureau

Adding to North Dakota's homeless problem

With many unfilled oil jobs in North Dakota, people are arriving to try to fill the openings. For those who don't do the research on housing and the job requirements, it could make them homeless for a while. This adds to the homeless population already in the state, where few shelters exist especially in it's many rural areas.

From CBS News, this Associated Press story highlights the problem.

Many of the job seekers came to North Dakota without researching jobs or housing, said Louis "Mac" McLeod, executive director of the Minot Area Homeless Coalition. They arrive to find they are unqualified for the work that exists, or if they land a job, they can't get housing, which is scarce.

"If you got a roof over your head, stay there," McLeod advised. "We want people to come to North Dakota, but we don't want people coming here and not being able to survive."

Most don't understand how severe North Dakota's winters are, he said: "Put your hand in a freezer for five minutes - welcome to North Dakota."

Eric Cisneros, 27, drove 700 miles from Colorado to North Dakota about three weeks ago on a tip from a buddy who landed a job in the oil fields. He's been spending nights in his truck or staying with new acquaintances in Minot. The town of about 36,000 is home to a college and a U.S. Air Force Base but has no permanent shelter for the homeless.

Most of North Dakota's smaller cities and towns lack shelters and other services for the homeless. That may be because large-scale homelessness hasn't been a widespread problem before.

Last year, 987 homeless people were counted in a survey that recorded people encountered by volunteers in a single day, said Michael Carbone, executive director of the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People. That was an 18 percent increase from the previous year's count of 836. This year's figures aren't yet available.

Cisneros said he plans to tough it out even though North Dakota is "probably the coldest place on the planet."

In Colorado, he worked as a laborer and carpenter, competing with dozens of people for each job. In Minot, he found a job as a cashier at a truck stop and has applied for oil industry jobs.

"Initially, it's been tough in North Dakota but in the long run, I think it will be worth it, because there are jobs here," Cisneros said.

North Dakota has about 8,500 unfilled jobs and the lowest jobless rate of any state, at about 4 percent.

WHO welcomes a new human organ trafficking law

From IRIN, the World Health Organization welcomes a controversial new law in Egypt regulating the black market for human organs.

A controversial organ transplant bill expected to become law in the next few weeks could regularize organ transplants and curb Egypt’s booming illicit trade in human organs, experts say.

Hundreds and possibly thousands of poor Egyptians sell their kidneys and livers every year to pay off debts and buy food, making the country a regional “hub” for organ trafficking, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The bill, which is causing controversy among medics, clerics and rights activists, says organs donated from live donors will be restricted to “family members of the fourth degree”, and that the removal of organs without official authorization would be considered first-degree murder and be punishable by death.

Official authorization for organ removal will come from a three-person panel to be established by the Higher Committee for Organ Transplants, a Ministry of Health-affiliated body.

For dead patients, the law stipulates that the panel reach consensus on whether or not the potential donor is dead - an issue on which there is much contention.

Dead or alive?

The consensus in the medical profession is that if a person’s entire brain is dead, the person is dead, even though their heart may continue to beat for a short time. This provides an opportunity to obtain organs while they are still in good condition for transplantation.

Some Muslim clerics and MPs say a person’s heart must stop before he or she can be pronounced dead.

“Apart from this, the law is totally against Islamic law, because man doesn‘t have the right to donate his or her body, which is God‘s after all,” said Mohamed Awadeen, a professor of Islamic law at Al-Azhar University. “The advocates of the new law are lying. Organ donors won’t lead a normal life later on. A man needs kidneys to live normally.”

However, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's most respected institution, has previously endorsed a brain dead standard.

Law for the wealthy?

Some rights activists have said the new law could exacerbate organ trafficking and turn Egypt into a global market for the organ trade.

“This would only benefit the rich,” said Hafez Abu Saeda, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Egypt’s leading human rights organization. He said by offering legal cover for organ transplants, the government was turning the poor into sources for human spare parts and offering the rich - in Egypt and beyond - a well stocked market for organs.

Statistics for organ sales and transplants in Egypt do not exist because they are mostly performed clandestinely, but Abu Saeda said his own research suggested hundreds of unlicensed transplants happen every year.

He said some of the richer recipients who did not trust the skills of local doctors took donors with them to China to have transplants.

“Rich people from the Gulf also come here to buy organs. A law like this can be a great affliction in such a poor country,” Abu Saeda said in a recent discussion in Cairo on the law.

“Wonderful step”

“The approval of this law is a wonderful step that creates hope for thousands of patients who have been waiting a long time for life-saving transplant operations. It is also a significant step towards ending illegal organ trafficking, which usually results in operations conducted under unsafe conditions and harms both donor and patient,” Hussein Gezairy, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement on 20 January.

WHO estimates there are 42,000 people in Egypt in need of transplants.

“Patients have waited too long for this law to come out,” Mahmud el-Motini, a leading liver transplant specialist, told IRIN. “Tens of thousands of Egyptians are in bad need of legislation that enables them to have organ transplants.”

South African study finds no link between poverty and crime

A new survey conducted by South Africa's government finds no link between poverty and violent crime. The study conducted by SA Institute of Race Relations found that poverty rates varied across the South African municipalities, but shows that some areas that had high poverty rates also had low murder or crime rates.

From South Africa's Times Live we find this breakdown of the survey.

The SAIRR said Eastern Cape municipalities had the highest murder rate, 54 murders per 100,000 people, and a poverty rate of 62%.

But Limpopo municipalities recorded the lowest murder rate - while sharing the same poverty rate.

The findings form part of a local government study which assessed 80 indicators from each of 52 metropolitan and district municipalities.

The indicators included demographics, education, employment, housing, access to basic services, transport, social security, health, and crime.

Western Cape municipalities also recorded a high murder rate with a low poverty rate of 27.5%.

Poverty rates varied across municipalities, nationally and within provinces.

The Alfred Nzo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape recorded the highest poverty rate with 76%, while the lowest was in the West Coast Municipality and the Cape Winelands Municipality in the Western Cape.

US Lawmakers call for Haitian debt forgiveness

97 US lawmakers signed a letter to ask the G-7 to forgive Haiti's debt. The finance ministers of G-7 countries are about to gather in Canada. The letter was sent to ahead of the meetings to hopefully force Haiti debt forgiveness onto the agenda.

California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen led the letter writing campaign. The two are also involved in legislation efforts on Haiti's debt along with Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar.

From IPS, reporter Jim Lobe talks about the letter's request and details the amount of Haitian debt. Debt forgiveness organization Jubille USA also wrote a blog post about the effort.

On the eve of Friday's meeting by G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit, Canada, 94 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that also called for "the provision of assistance to Haiti in the form of grants so that the country does not accumulate additional debts."

That call was echoed by a several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Oxfam, Jubilee USA, and Avaaz, which said they plan to deliver hundreds of thousands of individual signatures on petitions appealing for debt cancellation from across the world to this weekend's ministerial meeting.
...

The push on the G7, which, in addition to the U.S., includes Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union (EU), comes as Haiti struggles to clean up and begin recovering from the cataclysmic Jan. 12 earthquake that is estimated to have killed at least 150,000 people, and possibly tens of thousands more.

In addition to damaging much of the country's infrastructure, the quake, the most lethal in the Americas' recorded history, also rendered nearly one million of its nearly 10 million people homeless, creating unprecedented challenges for the government of President Rene Preval, humanitarian NGOs and foreign aid groups, and more than 10,000 U.S. troops and U.N. peacekeepers.
...

Last June, 1.2 billion dollars in Haiti's external debt, including that owed to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), was cancelled after the Preval government completed a three-year Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme.

Over half of that debt had been incurred by Haiti's dictatorships, notably the Duvalier dynasty that ruled the country from 1957 to 1986.

But the cancellation covered debt incurred by Haiti only through 2004. In the last five years, the country has received new loans – some of them to help it recover from the floods and other hurricane damage – totalling another 1.05 billion dollars.

Some two-thirds of that total is owed to multilateral agencies, including some 447 million dollars to the IDB, 39 million dollars to the World Bank, and some 165 million dollars to the IMF.

The remainder is bilateral debt, most of it owed to Taiwan (92 million dollars) and Venezuela (167 million dollars). Haiti also owes the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) another 58 million dollars.

While the terms of the multilateral loans are concessional – most of them carry only nominal interest rates and can be repaid over as much as 50 years - servicing of the IMF and IDB loans by themselves alone would normally require Haiti to pay more than 100 million dollars over the next decade, a sum that it can ill afford in the wake of last month's earthquake, according to the NGOs.

Yemen economic meltdown leads to extremism

More on how poor economic have led to extremism from IRIN. This story analyzes the factors that have helped rebellion in Yemen.

From the Shiite rebellion in Saada in the north to the surge of secessionist movement in the south and the dangerous alliance forged between tribes and Al-Qaeda in the east, one factor unites analyses of the forces pulling Yemen apart: the failure of its economy.

“In my view, the root cause of all the problems from Saada to secession to Al-Qaeda is poverty,” Abdel Karim Aryani, long-time adviser to Yemen’s president, told IRIN. “No-one gets recruited free of charge. There is a religious appeal, but that only builds on people’s lack of income.”

An international conference in London last week called for “urgent and concrete action” by Yemen to address “conditions conducive to radicalization and instability”.

“The challenges in Yemen are growing and, if not addressed, risk threatening the stability of the country and broader region,” said the closing statement by a coalition of Arab and Western nations, including the UK, the USA and Saudi Arabia.

However, some say the job is made difficult by some daunting economic indicators.

No oil income from 2017?

In 2008, the state budget totalled 1.8 trillion Yemeni rials (about US$8.76 billion), according to Mostafa Nasser, chairman of the Economic Media Centre in Sanaa. Over three-quarters of that came from oil revenues.

Though ministers insist most of Yemen remains unexplored for oil, there have been only limited new discoveries in the past five years and production has fallen from 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2003 to roughly 280,000 bpd at the beginning of 2009. The World Bank estimates that by 2017 the government will earn no income from oil.

According to a September 2009 report by the Carnegie Endowment entitled Yemen: Avoiding a Downward Spiral, half the population, which is set to double in 20 years time, is illiterate and earning less than $2 a day, and unemployment is hovering at around 35 percent.

Some health indicators, such as nearly half of Yemeni children being malnourished, are comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa

Unemployment and Al-Qaeda

Sheikh Abdullah al-Shareef, a tribal leader from the ancient temple city of Marib, 120km east of Sanaa and an operational stronghold for Al-Qaeda, sees a direct link between lack of work and the rise of militancy.

“The local people are jobless and they meet foreign Al-Qaeda who lead them. They say they are following religion, but in fact they are young and unemployed,” he said.

Sheikh Shareef also sees a rise in fundamentalism being driven by privately run religious schools which often fill the space left by inadequate state education.

An Islamic school in Marib established by Abu al-Hassan al-Masri, an Egyptian, continues to teach fundamentalist doctrine to Yemeni and foreign extremists, according to local journalists with knowledge of the school.

“These religious schools have been created to back up the educational system because there is a gap. Politically they have little effect, but personally I believe they increase sectarian ideologies,” said Sheikh Shareef.

Rebellion drains resources

Over the north, opinions vary as to the ideological motivations of the powerful Shiite Houthi clan and their followers whose five-year rebellion against the government in Sanaa has now displaced a quarter of a million people.

Mohammed al-Dahiry, professor of political science at Sanaa University, argues that while the Houthis see themselves as direct descendants of Prophet Mohammed and thus rightful rulers of Yemen, theirs is also a rebellion rooted in economic and social marginalization.

“This is what happens when the government does not do its job. In Saada there is no social development, not enough schools and hospitals. Peaceful opposition is restricted and so it leads to violence,” said Dahiry.

The war against the Houthis has drained resources from an already meagre state budget, with President Saleh warning in August that money for schools was now being used to build trenches for war. Parliament has suspended approval of the 2010 budget until the conflict is over.

Dahiry laid ultimate responsibility for Yemen’s failing state at the door of the international community, blaming the USA and Europe for spending money propping up Saleh’s regime, rather than on progressive development.

Dreaming of jobs

Yet as serious as the war against the Houthis has been, and as deadly as the threat is from Al Qaeda may be, it is the South Yemen secessionist movement which is the single most serious threat to the country’s long-term stability, according to a broad spectrum of Yemeni politicians and analysts.

“Partition will mean a return to war between the north and south every 10 years and war between the people of the south every five years,” said presidential adviser Aryani. “If there is secession, Yemen will become a hotbed of conflict.”

Despite some infrastructure investment and the opening of new schools in the south since unification in 1990 and the end of the civil war in 1994, Aryani and others say the secessionist movement - whose regular mass demonstrations have been fired on by security forces over the past year resulting in at least a dozen deaths - is driven by mass unemployment.

“Every man of 19 today has lived through unification. He never knew how much we all suffered from partition,” said Aryani. “The economic situation makes people think if they secede they will get a job the next day. On the contrary: If he has a chance of a job tomorrow, he will not have it next month.”

US Military outreach to Afghan businesswomen

This is may be off topic, but we talk so much about small business people in the under-developed world that we found this interesting. The US military is attempting to award contracts to business women in Afghanistan. The businesses will provide materials for the Afghan security force that the US military is setting up.

From The New York Times, writer Gayle Tzemach Lemmon describes an orientation session for the business women held at an US military base.

“It’s very simple,” he said, speaking slowly in American English that his translator quickly rendered into Dari for the Afghan businesswomen seated around a long wooden table. “You just measure it across. If it doesn’t measure 18 inches, it is wrong.”

The women nodded and took notes as Captain Flores moved on to the next topic in a four-hour tutorial in how to produce goods to specification for the U.S. military.

The session, held in mid-November, was part of an initiative to use military purchasing power to accomplish two goals: strengthening the capacity of businesses owned by Afghan women and creating local supply chains to support Afghan security forces, which are poised to grow sharply by the end of the year under President Barack Obama’s strategy for the country.

The effort, started last year by the Pentagon’s Kabul Regional Contracting Center, sets aside contracts totaling $365 million over five years to produce clothing and equipment for the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army. The international community pledged in 2001 to rebuild the country’s security and armed forces; since then, the United States has committed $26 billion to train and equip the A.N.A. and A.N.P., accounting for roughly 55 percent of total U.S. reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan to date.

In the view of military contracting officials leading the set-aside project, supporting female entrepreneurs and bolstering Afghanistan’s economy are part of countering an increasingly emboldened insurgency. “Fifty percent of the country are women,” said Air Force Maj. Chuck Seidel, a local procurement chief with a budget of roughly $1 billion to purchase local supplies, including uniforms, boots and now T-shirts and other basics, for Afghan forces.
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Yet despite great enthusiasm both from the U.S. military contracting experts and the entrepreneurs at the session, the initial question concerning the program’s viability remains: Will companies owned by Afghan women have the capacity to meet the requirements of so large a contract for so demanding a customer?

Awards for the Afghan army and police clothing and gear are expected to total $35 million in the first year alone, with a $300,000 minimum for each company that submits a winning contract. Though both their numbers and their successes are growing, to date few female Afghan entrepreneurs have produced at such volumes or won such big contracts.

Businesses competing for the contract, whether as a single company or a joint venture, will have to assemble a proposal to produce one of two groups of items, either undershirts and linens or rain gear and sleeping bags. Both are complicated propositions given that large-scale, in-country manufacturing experience remains the exception rather than the rule among Afghan entrepreneurs.

Very few women own factories here. And as the first attempt at the proposal process showed, most who make textiles sew at home or in small workshops to produce one-of-a-kind, handmade goods. Quality control of the kind to which the U.S. military is accustomed is nearly nonexistent.

Those working with the businesswomen, however, warn against underestimating either the capacity or the potential of the entrepreneurs. They note that a number of male-owned Afghan companies have already won contracts to provide the army and the force with boots and uniforms under a local procurement program started several years back.

Mobile Banking challenges in Africa

Mobile banking has flourished in Africa, it makes for a cheap, safe and easy alternative to brick and motar banking. It has even eased the efforts of microcredit banks, as payments for loans can be made right from the phone.

This story from Radio Netherlands talks to mobile banking expert Lukas Wellen. He has set up microcredit banks throughout the world, and has the same set of problems in setting up mobile banks in Africa. Radio Netherlands reporter Johan Huizinga profiles Wellen and the challenges he has encountered.

The economist says that fraud actually occurs in only a small percentage of cases. However, there are many stages at which things can go wrong. The person taking the money to the bank can mess around with the group bookkeeping, he may meet a friend along the way who needs money in a hurry and can't pay him back until next week. Then he can commit fraud with the receipt he receives from the bank and won't have to show to the credit controller for another week.

Lukas Wellen explains that mobile banking removes many of these obstacles. The weekly repayment to the bank can be carried out with a simple text message. All the data goes straight into the computer. Manual administration and paper receipts are virtually unnecessary, since everything can be checked directly by mobile phone and the lender doesn't have to rush off to the bank at three o'clock in the afternoon to deposit his money before it closes.

Safer and cheaper
The group meetings can be a lot shorter since the money doesn't have to be counted and it doesn't have to take place anywhere near the bank. It can be held at a different place - near a church or market, for example - where all the members go anyway on a weekly basis. In other words microfinance by mobile phone is more efficient, safer and cheaper for the customer.

Professor Robert Lensink, economist at the University of Groningen, specialises in research into microcredit. He regards mobile banking as a major step forwards, says it makes monetary transactions much safer. People who have made a lot of money in the market no longer run the risk of being robbed on their way home. And, since they no longer have to go to the bank themselves, it's also cheaper.

However, Lukas Wellen emphasises that the advantage for the bank is more significant. It has direct control and insight into the repayment behaviour of the lenders, which make it easier to attract investors who can be presented with a clear financial perspective.

Into the bush
In fact, credit banks no longer need local branches. Armed with a laptop and a mobile phone, the credit controller can travel into the bush to do his work. For the time being, however, he suggests they keep local branches open. He knows another overhead which can be made cheaper and more efficient.

Video from MSF on their health care work in Gaza

From Medecins Sans Frontieres, this video describes their health care efforts in Gaza. It has been a year since Israel's Operation Cast Lead struck the region, some Palestinians are still feeling physical and mental scars from the violent military operation.

"To Catch a Dollar" trailer

Here is the official trailer to the movie "To Catch a Dollar." The movie chronicles Grammen Bank's expansion and the introduction of microcredit in America. The movie was recently screened at the Sundance Film festival.

Water shortage could further fuel terrorism in Yemen

Much has been made about the Al Qaeda branch in Yemen. There has been some debate on whether poverty has fueled the strength of Al Qaeda in the country or not. However, the shortage of water in Yemen could also help bring more recruits into Al Qaeda. Yemeni government regulation of water is perceived to be full of corruption and inaction by country's residents as supplies shrink and wells go without maintenance.

From Eureka Street, freelance writer James Dorsey looks into water consumption in Yemen.

Without radical reform of agricultural and other policies, the Yemeni capital Sana'a stands in a decade at most to become modern history's first capital to run out of water, according to a recent projection by the World Bank-funded Sana Water Basin Management Project. Rapidly dwindling water resources are likely to lead to disputes, reignite riots against a government already widely viewed as corrupt, nepotistic and incompetent and strengthen Al Qa'ida's Yemeni affiliate, Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

One of the world's water poorest nations, Yemen is consuming its limited water resources at a far faster rate than it is able to replenish them. At Yemen's current seven per cent population growth rate, consumption can only increase. Yemen's population is set to almost double from 23 to 40 million over the next two decades.

Alongside unemployment, water is driving increased internal migration and urbanisation. Some 70 per cent of Sana'a's population either buy their water from private vendors or collect free water from local mosques. Vendors sell a liter of water for $0.15, a steep price in a country where incomes average $2 a day. The vendors draw their water from wells near the capital and deliver it in tanker trucks or jerry cans. With no enforced standard for potable water, quality varies.

Water extraction rates in Sana'a are believed to outstrip replenishment by a factor of four. Sana'a's water basin is close to collapse. So is the basin in Amran, 50 km north of Sana'a. Of the 180 wells tapped a decade ago by Sana'a's municipal water company, only 80 remain active. In some districts of the capital, taps have shut down. In others, supply is interrupted at least once a month.

In 2008, the Eurasia Group reported that 19 of Yemen's 21 aquifers were not being replenished and that in some cases non-renewable fossil water was being extracted. Wells in several parts of the country have run dry. The falling water table means wells have to be dug deeper at levels of 200 m and more where the water is contaminated.
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The water crisis plays into the hands of Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula , the Al Qa'ida offshoot that claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day bombing of a USA airliner. To compensate for its lack of control in large parts of the country, the government has delegated responsibility for water to local authorities, establishing water companies primarily in urban areas. It is in those tribal areas, like Marib and Shabwa, where no such companies were created that AQAP is strongest.

Economic and political reforms demanded by donors will have to go beyond cost-cutting to incorporate more efficient water use and distribution, pricing to encourage water conservation and development of sustainable agriculture. Without such reforms, water could be at the core of Yemen's next generation of conflict.

World Bank working with Chinese on bringing manufacturing to Africa

World Bank head Robert Zoellick says they are going to do more partnering with China to develop a manufacturing base in Africa. In the past the bank has been critical of China, especially in the recent roads for copper deal with the Congo. They have accused China of taking materials from the continent, or filling their African manufacturing plants with Chinese workers instead of locals.

Robert Zoellick says the World Bank is now working with the Chinese to bring their toy and shoe manufacturing to Africa. The Bank hopes that more manufacturing on the African continent will help it follow in the Asian model and history of development.

From Reuters Africa, writer Ed Cropley describes the Zoellick conference call that touched on the subject.

The legacy of colonial rule means many sub-Saharan African countries -- South Africa excluded -- have economies structured round the export of raw materials such as oil, gold and cocoa, and have to import basic manufactured goods at higher prices.

Developing a domestic factory sector would go a long way towards cutting these costs, as well as creating jobs and accelerating industrialisation.

Chinese officials often talk of the potential for Chinese investment to bring about an African industrial revolution. Zoellick's desire to see World Bank expertise and cash tied up with Chinese business and manufacturing knowhow supports that view.

It also marks a departure from World Bank criticism of some of the massive minerals-for-infrastructure deals that have typified much Chinese investment in the continent.

"In the case of China, we may sometimes look for opportunities to co-invest; sometimes we may try to help and work with the local government to build infrastructure -- maybe it's the electricity to power the plants, maybe it's the roads," Zoellick told journalists via teleconference from Addis Ababa.

Other examples included advising host countries on streamlining customs procedures -- a vital step in establishing manufacturing-for-export zones, he said.

Small business struggles to find venture capital funding in India

A couple of entrepreneurs from small town in India were profiled for a story from Live Mint. The businesses have been able to turn big profits while benefiting people on the bottom of the economic period. The entrepreneurs profiled want to expand, but have had trouble attracting venture capital to do so.

From The Wall Street Journal's Live Mint writer Deepti Chaudhary describes the challenge to find funding.

Bangalore: Gunjan Kumar’s business proposition is simple. The 28-year-old buys traditional art and craft products from artisans in villages and sells these in metro cities.

Kumar started Amethia Apparelz and Co. in Patna 18 months ago with Rs6 lakh. In its first year, the firm earned Rs33 lakh in revenue and expects to end fiscal year 2010 with Rs1.65 crore.

In another part of the country, Nafisa Radiatorwala’s start-up, Nature’s Glow, is clocking 10 times the revenue it made two years ago. The Vadodara-based firm in Gujarat exports herbal beauty and treatment products to the US, UK, and the United Arab Emirates, and hopes to end 2009-10 with revenue of Rs5 crore.

Kumar and Radiatorwala are among several profit-making entrepreneurs in India’s small cities and towns keen to attract venture capital (VC) investment as they look to expand.

Deal contribution from smaller cities and towns increased to about 15% in the previous year from below 5% earlier, according to estimates by four investors Mint spoke with, but not many start-ups from these regions have been able to raise capital from VC funds.

“Investors like glamorous business models,” Kumar says in crisp Hindi. “Ours is a very bottom-of-the-pyramid model but a highly profitable business. Our products are sold from four times to 10 times of their production cost.”
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Investors say reaching out to these firms poses several challenges.

“How does one discover what is happening there? Also, due diligence becomes a difficulty while dealing with these firms,” says Kanwaljit Singh, managing director, Helion Venture Partners, one of India’s biggest and most active investors. “Secondly, post-investment ability to work closely with them is not easy.”

Shradha Sharma, founder, YourStory.in, a website focused on start-up firms, says entrepreneurs from small cities and towns are not Internet-savvy and do not know how to make business propositions even “if they do get a chance to meet investors”.

Radiatorwala, for example, has heard of VC firms but isn’t sure about how they work. She is looking to raise money to start selling over-the-counter products in India in six months and expand to Africa but isn’t sure whom to approach.

“I am still working out if I should go to banks or other investors for funding my future plans,” she says.

RT NextBillion.net

Update on the accused child traffickers in Haiti

Here is an update on the group of people who stand accused of smuggling children out of Haiti. There are plans in the works to send the eight people back into the United States to be tried here. Haiti is unable to do the trial because their justice building was destroyed by the recent earthquake with many judges and officials killed inside.

Yesterday, Haiti's Prime Minister Max Bellerive said that the group knew what they were doing was wrong.

From this Associated Press story that we found at the Detroit News, writers Paisley Dodds and Frank Bajak give us the latest.

Haiti's communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelin Lassegue, said Haitian and U.S. officials were discussing the idea of trying the Baptists in the United States because Haiti's court system was crippled in the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, which destroyed the justice ministry building and killed many government officials.

Since their arrest Friday near the Dominican border, the church group has been held inside dingy concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged.

A lawyer representing them alleged Monday that they were being treated poorly and that one of them, a diabetic, fainted and was hospitalized. Attorney Jorge Puello, in the Dominican Republic, said they weren't being given adequate medical care and food.

While the U.S. Baptists said they were only trying to rescue abandoned children from the disaster zone, investigators were trying to determine how the Americans got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved.

Aid workers who interviewed the children said some have surviving parents, and that some were desperate to be reunited with their families.

The Baptists' "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children's home.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100201/NATION/2010368/1020/NATION/Church-group-accused-of-trafficking-Haitian-children-awaiting-fate#ixzz0eU5ih0Pb

Feeding America says 1 in 8 Americans used food banks in 2009

America's largest food relief group says that food bank usage is up 46 percent from 2005. According to Feeding America 1 in 8 Americans used food banks at some point last year, that translates to 37 million Americans. Feeding America is a network of over 200 US food banks.

From USA Today, writer Wendy Koch gives us more details from the study.

"This is a crisis," says Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America. "People need to understand that this is America, and we're seeing this kind of need." She says the report is her group's most comprehensive study on emergency food distribution.

It comes as a record number of Americans are receiving food stamps — 33.7 million last year — and as President Obama, who has set a goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015, proposed in his budget Monday to add $1 billion annually to school-based food programs.
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The Agriculture Department reported in November that 14.6% of households didn't have enough food at some time in 2008.

Feeding America based its report on 61,000 interviews with people seeking food aid and 37,000 surveys of food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters and other programs affiliated with Feeding America food banks.

More than a third of those interviewed said they had to choose between food and other necessities, including rent, utilities and health care. The average monthly income of households seeking help, $940, is below the $1,214 federal poverty level for a two-person household.

"Our system is overburdened," Escarra says. She says companies, individuals and the federal government have increased donations, but food banks are still struggling to keep up with demand.