Photo: Andreas Hackl/IRIN

A beachside restaurant close to Gaza city. The lights are powered by generators because of daily electricity cuts

GAZA CITY,  – From factories to the fishing industry, the Gaza Strip economy is being affected by more than two months of fuel shortages and power outages, taking a toll on the livelihoods of its 1.6 million inhabitants.

To make a living on the sea, Madlene Kollab needs 20 litres of fuel each day. Unable to afford that, the Gaza Strip’s only fisherwoman has seen her catch halve to just 1.5 kilos per day. “I [began] fishing with my father when I was six years old, but without fuel I can hardly survive.”

The 10-week fuel crisis has hit power generation, with Gaza’s diesel-fired power station forced to make daily electricity cuts lasting for up to 12 hours.

Thabit Tarturi, who runs a beach-side restaurant in Gaza City, is seeing his earnings eaten up by the cost of the fuel needed to run his generators. “There is absolutely no profit at the moment. Our only [earnings go to] food and survival, that’s it,” he told IRIN.

The power cuts are also “disrupting the delivery of basic services, including water and healthcare”, Ramesh Rajasingham, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the oPt has warned.

Gaza’s only power station was forced to shut down on 14 February due to the lack of fuel, which has previously been imported in amounts of up to one million litres a day, smuggled through underground tunnels from the Egyptian border post of Rafah. OCHA estimates that less than 100,000 litres is now arriving.

The dramatic fall-off is reportedly linked to a clampdown by the Egyptian authorities on smuggling in the Sinai Peninsula by Bedouin tribes, who took advantage of the insecurity following the fall of Hosni Mubarak to extend their criminal influence. The fuel is pumped from trucks on the Egyptian side into Gaza through pipes in the tunnels.

The Hamas government in Gaza began to use the tunnels after Israel imposed a tight blockade on the Strip in mid-2007. Despite the easing of restrictions by Israel in 2010, that trade has continued as fuel from Egypt is significantly cheaper. Two kinds of tunnels exist: those that are taxed and controlled by Hamas, and the others which are non-affiliated. But in both cases, “the electrical connections are courtesy of Rafah municipality, to which the smugglers pay a license fee”, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Each side in this game is trying to pressure the other, and Egypt is in the middle of it, trying to solve the problem. But Egypt is also cautious and angry about Hamas, because smuggling through the tunnels has caused troubles in Egypt. Multiple parties are involved in the same problem and that makes it all complicated

Solution?

A sustainable solution to the current crisis means agreement among the four main players: Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel and Egypt.

On 13 April, Egypt brokered a deal in which Hamas would channel money to an Israeli company through the PA, given that Israel has no direct links with Hamas. Upon payment, the Israeli company would deliver fuel through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza. So far, about US$8.9 million has been paid, Palestinian officials in Ramallah said.

As a result,  some 6.1 million litres of fuel in 13 separate consignments have been delivered to the Gaza power plant via the Kerem Shalom crossing between 4-23 April, according to OCHA. Fuel brought in from Israel is twice as expensive as that smuggled from Egypt.

The Gaza power station requires more than 400,000 litres of diesel a day, and currently operates just two of its four turbines, producing 35 megawatts (MW) instead of 80-85 MW. It has managed to reduce power outages from the 18 hours a day that prevailed in February and March.

But “a legitimate solution for the transfer of sufficient fuel is imperative to ensure that the most basic services can be maintained”, said OCHA’s Rajasingham.

In its absence, humanitarian efforts have brought some short-term relief. A delivery of 150,000 litres of fuel by the International Committee of the Red Cross on 2 April restored the fuel reserves of Gaza’s  hospitals for an estimated two more weeks.

“The current agreement is not a long term solution. It only serves the people of Gaza until other solutions are in place,” said a senior PA official, Ghassan Khatib.

According to Khatib, only the terms of a previous agreement between Egypt and Hamas, announced on 23 February, could provide a sustainable solution. “This includes building a gas pipeline from Egypt to the Gaza Strip and linking the two electricity grids with each other. But this will take at least eight months.”

However, the conditions under which this agreement will be implemented, if at all, remain unclear.

Blame game

“Each side in this game is trying to pressure the other, and Egypt is in the middle of it, trying to solve the problem. But Egypt is also cautious and angry about Hamas, because smuggling through the tunnels has caused troubles in Egypt,” Abdel Monem Saed, president of the Egyptian Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told IRIN, adding: “Multiple parties are involved in the same problem and that makes it all complicated.”

The Egyptian government is reluctant to accept responsibility for Gaza’s energy crisis, but rather holds Israel responsible as it controls the main entry point to the territory at Karem Shalom, said Sami Abu Sultan, a humanitarian aid worker from Gaza. “It is clear for Egypt that Israel is trying to push the responsibility about Gaza towards it.”

Hamas objects to a solution involving Israel, arguing that this could give Israel the opportunity to cut supplies in times of political tension. Instead, it wants direct trade with Egypt via the Rafah crossing, according to Ahmad Abu Al-Amreen, spokesperson of the Energy Authority in the Gaza Strip.

Analysts think that is unlikely to happen. “Egypt has no interest in delivering fuel directly to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing or the underground tunnels. Rafah is a crossing for persons, not for goods. And the tunnels are not an acceptable way of transfer,” said Monem Saed.

Amreen said some fuel was also expected from Qatar. “A ship loaded with about 30 million liters of fuel as a donation from Qatar is currently waiting at Suez port…Negotiations with Egypt are underway to facilitate the delivery to the Gaza Strip.”

Meanwhile, Egyptian parliamentarians are also exerting some pressure. “We, in the Egyptian parliament, are trying to pressure the government to act for the sake of the people in Gaza. I believe that Rafah is an option, simply because it’s the quickest way,” Sayed Majida, chairman of the parliamentary energy committee, told IRIN.

A direct deal between Egypt and Hamas is also supported by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which denies any responsibility for the energy crisis. That deal, observers believe, is in line with Israel’s shared interest with Egypt on threats to stability coming out of Gaza.

“We are not at all involved in this crisis. We bear no responsibility and we think that fuel should be supplied to Gaza directly from Egypt. That would make things a lot easier,” said Yigal Primor, spokesperson of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“All players have roles in this crisis,” Samer Zaqot, field work coordinator at Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, told IRIN . “But if we go back to the roots, we need to ask why Hamas decided to become dependent on smuggled fuel from Egypt.”

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source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Joseph Mayton/IRIN

4.2 percent of Nepal’s population is Muslim

KATHMANDU,  – Sheikh Islam, a local community leader in Mantikar, a tiny mountain village of 1,000 inhabitants in Nepal, stops at the rickety steel wire bridge and with a broad sweep of his arm indicates the expanse of the Kathmandu Valley that unfolds on the outskirts of Nepal’s capital city.

“We are Muslim, but we are Nepali as well. We are a growing segment of society and we hope to have our voices heard as political leaders write a new constitution,” he told IRIN.

According to the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics, 4.2 percent of Nepal’s 30 million inhabitants are Muslim.

More than 90 percent live in the Terai – the southern plains bordering India – one of the country’s most densely populated and poorest areas, where they are predominant in the Banke, Parsa, Kapilvastu, and Rautahat districts.

Nepal’s Constituent Assembly (CA), a legislative body elected in 2008 to draft the next constitution, is working to complete the task by 27 May – its 5th deadline.

More than five years since the end of a decade-long civil war between Maoist forces and the government, in which 13,000 people died, many Muslims complain that they have been left out of the drafting process.

“Here in our village, we are struggling to make life tolerable and our community has hopes that Muslims will have a voice in the drafting process,” Sheikh Islam noted.

His optimism does not appear to be widely shared among Muslims, who are under-represented in government. The 2007 interim constitution was the first time in Nepal’s history that Muslims were officially represented. Of the 329 members of the interim parliament, four are Muslim – much lower than the 4.2 percent in the overall population.

Nepal’s political leaders aim to develop a federal system that can incorporate the more than 100 ethnic groups in the former Hindu monarchy.

Photo: Joseph Mayton/IRIN

A halal butcher on the streets of Kathmandu

“In many ways, the Muslims in Nepal struggle like everyone else, but with the rising fear of Islam across the world, Nepalese remain scared of Muslims, which is why we are pressing for change,” said Sheikh Islam.

Making things tougher is an incident that occurred on 24 April. Muslim activists and politicians demonstrated at the District Administrative Office in Kathmandu, a prohibited zone that is off-limits to protesters, demanding that their voices be heard in the drafting of the constitution and their identity and religious background be supported – 23 were detained. Some in the community perceive this as a crackdown on Muslim activism and further action has been threatened.

A broad alliance of 31 Muslim groups submitted a 10-point memorandum to the CA in mid-April, calling for the formation of a constitutional commission and a federation that recognizes the Muslim community as an integral aspect of Nepali society. They also asked the state to adopt a policy of positive discrimination towards the community.

“We would really like to be able to build more mosques, expand our traditions and be able to publicly practice our faith without being fearful of repression,” said Sadrul Miya Haq, a Muslim MP and coordinator of the National Muslim Struggle Alliance (NMSA). “Fundamentally, the Muslim demands are part of the need to create freedom of religion that does not keep Nepal only Hindu.”

As the deadline for Nepal’s constitution approaches, many contentious issues among Nepal’s ethnic, caste, regional and political groups remain to be resolved. Analysts warn of further political instability unless a constitution can be agreed upon soon, while NMSA says it will launch a second phase of protests on 2 May to ensure constitutional garantees for Muslims.

jm/ds/he source www.irinnews.org

Photo: Mark Wilson/IRIN

Ibu Sutria along West Java’s heavily polluted Krukut River, along which millions live

JAKARTA,  – Heavy pollution of river water by household and industrial waste in the Indonesian province of West Java is threatening the health of at least five million people living on the riverbanks, say government officials and water experts.

Poor sanitation and hygiene cause 50,000 deaths annually in Indonesia, with untreated sewage resulting in over six million tons of human waste being released into inland water bodies, according to an ongoing study by the World Bank.

Ibu Sutria, 53, lives in a wooden shack on the banks of West Java’s Krukut River, which runs approximately 20km south from the capital, Jakarta, to the city of Depok. “Sometimes the river is clean, sometimes it’s dirty,” she said. Sutria suffers from regular bouts of stomach ache and diarrhoea, and says the river is constantly flooded.

“People use the river for a toilet and children play in it because they have nowhere else to swim.” She and others in her community use nearby ground water to wash themselves because they think it is cleaner than river water.

Pak Jumari, 35, is a leader of a community group living along the Ciliwung River, which runs north for 97km from the West Java city of Bogor. Since 2010 he has been using a boat to keep his own section of the Ciliwung clean by scooping out rubbish. “We find many detergents and soaps in the river, “he said. “We no longer use it for washing or drinking.”

Fishermen on the Ciliwung use “blast fishing” – bombs made of kerosene and fertilizer to kill fish so they are easier to catch – which has worsened pollution. Nevertheless, his community still fishes in the river, with few reported ill effects, he said.

Reasons for pollution

The Deputy Minister of the Indonesian Environment Ministry, Hendri Bastaman, told IRIN that pollution in West Java’s rivers is worsening, particularly in the Ciliwung and Citarum, where five million people live along the riverbanks.

“Much of the waste is dumped into rivers from households,” said Bastaman. “People are using these rivers as personal toilets. We’ve also found mercury in river water, which we suspect is coming from companies or those running small-scale mining activities close to the rivers.”

Health risks

Muhammad Rez Sahib, advocacy coordinator of KRuHA, a Jakarta-based coalition of more than 30 Indonesian NGOs focusing on safe water access, said none of the capital’s rivers could be viewed as safe for human use.

“Even the water suppliers in Jakarta don’t use the water here because it is so polluted,” he said. “Instead, they use water from the Citarum River, which is also heavily polluted. Even after this water is treated it’s still unsafe to drink.” The Citarum flows north from Bandung, the capital of West Java, for approximately 300km to the Java Sea.

Safe water alternatives for poor communities are “few and far between” Sahib noted. “Many will turn to use ground water, but due to a poor sewage system and open defecation, 90 percent of ground water in Jakarta is contaminated by E.coli bacteria. Many infant deaths are caused by this bacteria – E.coli is the main threat to human life from these rivers.”

Edward Carwardine, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Indonesia, noted that in West Java the use of “improved water” – obtained from taps, boreholes, covered wells and springs – falls below the national average, with only half of the population (approximately 20 million) able to access it.

“When families don’t have access to improved water sources, disease is much more likely,” said Carwardine. “Nearly a quarter of all deaths amongst children under five in Indonesia are caused by diarrhoeal disease.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nationwide more than 20,000 children in this age group die every year from diarrhoea.

Dengue fever and malaria, both spread by mosquitoes that thrive in stagnant water, account for an additional 3 percent of overall child deaths, according to Carwardine, who said more focus is needed to end the widespread practice of defecating in the open.

The Environment Ministry’s Bastaman said the government is using educational campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of unsafe water and to end defecation in rivers.

“For the Ciliwung we have a 10-year plan to restore the river’s health,” said Bastaman. “But for the Citarum, it’s impossible to get it back to the way it was prior to being polluted. The pollution is just too much.”

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source www.irinnews.org

DILI,  – Support services for women and children trafficked to Timor-Leste have been forced to close or will soon run out of funding, and NGOs worry that the government will not have the resources to fill the gap.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says Timor-Leste is primarily a destination country for international human trafficking, with mostly women and children brought across the border with Indonesia.

People are often lured from their villages with promises of jobs to pay off debts or earn large salaries in the country’s US dollar economy, say activists.

IOM assisted 33 women trafficked from 2008 to 2011 – 13 from Myanmar, 8 from Indonesia, 6 from Cambodia, 3 from China and 3 Timorese trafficked from rural areas to cities – but it is unclear exactly how many people have been trafficked into the country. Others speculate that the number could be higher.

The Alola Foundation, a Timorese NGO focusing on women’s issues and prevention of trafficking, reported 50 trafficked women in the same timeframe. “It’s a big issue,” Alzira dos Reis, the organization’s advocacy officer, told IRIN.

“I’m quite sure the number of trafficking victims is much higher than being reported,” said Susan Kendall, an international mentor at PRADET, a local NGO providing psychosocial support. “Nobody really knows what is going on. The border authorities lack resources. The whole system of identifying victims and referrals has broken down.”

The most recent US State Department Trafficking in Persons report notes that Indonesian and Chinese women are trafficked to Timor Leste and often forced to become commercial sex workers, while Cambodian and Burmese men and boys are often forced into labour or onto fishing boats operating in Timorese waters.

With just over 1 million inhabitants, Timor-Leste has nowhere near the volume of trafficking experienced by larger countries, but the number is significant, given the country’s size.

The lack of funding has already taken its toll. Dos Reis said the Alola Foundation’s human trafficking programme, funded by IOM, ended in February, with human trafficking awareness efforts now integrated into other programmes.

A shelter set up to provide temporary safe accommodation, counselling and health care for trafficked people by PRADET, had to close when funding ran out in August 2011. “Even if someone was referred to us, we wouldn’t have a designated place to put them now,” said Kendall.

IOM has cut back all direct trafficking support and has a limited budget for a capacity building and training programme, but that funding looks set to run out in September 2012.

“We have just finished the external funding we had,” noted IOM Chief of Mission Noberto Celistino, who said he was trying to source extra funding and was hoping for a positive response from the US government. The organization would ‘close up shop’ and leave Timor-Leste if additional funding was not forthcoming.

He had ‘little confidence’ that the Ministry for Social Solidarity would have the resources to cope with international trafficking should IOM cease its operations, although “They may have means to support or manage a case of domestic trafficking.”

Timor Leste is classified by the US State Department as a Tier 2 country, which means it does not meet the minimum standards in the internationally recognized Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, but is making “significant” efforts to do so.

A comprehensive draft law on trafficking, put forward in 2010, still needs three ministers to sign off on the proposed legislation before it goes to parliament for approval.

mw/ds/he source www.irinnews.org