His only fear was his countryman the Jamaican Blake who defeated him during the trials inb heir home country.

Here in London where things matter Bolt triumphantly took the Gold easily followed by Blake who became second fastest man taking home silver.

Mr Bolt is also the favourite in the 200 metres but also here he has Blake in mind. Blake defeated him during the trials also in Jamaica. It is, however, here in London Olympics where the win matters.

End

The first woman to be appointed Kenya Supreme Court Deputy president has lost the battle to retain her job. The Tribunal that was appointed by President Kibaki on the demand by the Judicial Service Commission has now recommended that she be removed due to misconduct.

She is accused of high handedness when she refused to be inspected by a security guard at a shopping mall in Nairobi last December.

It is allegged that she removed her gun and threated Kerubo the guard who had demanded that Ms Barasa show her the contents in her bag before could allow her into the mall..

The tribunal was led by the retired Tanzanian former Chief Justice.

End.

Testing new posting code

Photo: Suhair Karam/IRIN

Statistics about food security in oPt may be misleading

JERUSALEM,  - At a glance, the latest data on post-assistance food security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) last week – seems to warrant optimism.

2011 was the second straight year in which the number of those living in food insecurity declined in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). In the Gaza Strip, the percentage dropped from 60 in 2009 to 44 in 2011; in the West Bank, food insecurity rates have decreased 5 percent in the same two-year period to 17 percent.

But, as UNRWA itself admits, a deeper look into the numbers is less encouraging.

In the West Bank, Palestinians who live in refugee camps have actually experienced a rise in food insecurity – from 25 percent in 2009 to 29 percent in 2011. One quarter of Palestinian households in Israeli-controlled Area C are food insecure – 8 percent more than the West Bank average. Herders’ families in Area C are in a precarious situation, with 34 percent suffering from food insecurity.

And while food insecurity stands at just under 30 percent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip combined, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported in May 2012 that 50 percent of infants and children under two in oPt have iron deficiency anaemia. According to the same WHO report, malnutrition and stunting in children under five “is not improving” and could actually be “deteriorating”.

Short-term solutions

The Second Intifada (2000-2005) saw dramatic changes in Palestinians’ eating habits. Israeli-imposed movement restrictions on both people and goods strangled the economy; Palestinians’ inability to access farmland due to Israeli prohibitions and the separation barrier led to reduced agricultural output. Under these pressures, Palestinians increasingly came to rely on cereals, pulses, potatoes, vegetable oil and sugar rather than more costly and more nutritious foods like protein-rich fish and meat, fresh fruits and vegetables.

In 2003, at the height of the Second Intifada, FAO reported that meals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip often consisted of just tea and bread. Despite these dire circumstances, FAO did not recommend increased food aid. Instead, the organization stated that the most pressing issue, economic access – or the ability to buy food – must be addressed. In the short term, that meant job creation; in the long term, it meant investment in agriculture.

Yet, almost a decade later, critics say that most aid organizations remain focused on temporary, short-term solutions rather than the underlying problems.

Haneen Ghazawneh, a researcher at the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah, said international aid was still “going [more] to emergency assistance and food aid and less to development projects,” contributing to “the decline in agriculture”.

Reading the stats

Ghazawneh also takes issue with the latest food security data.

“When we talk about economic access [to food] that means having permanent jobs,” she explained. “My worry about these recent reports is that they exclude East Jerusalem, [where] people have very limited [work opportunities]. It’s Area C.”

She also said the apparent gains in Areas A and B may be illusory.

In the West Bank, many of those who are food secure are on the Palestinian Authority (PA) payroll, said Ghazawneh. But much of the PA’s funding comes from foreign aid, leaving employees vulnerable to changes in the political climate and the global economy – as was the case in July, when the PA could pay only half of employees’ salaries.

“We’re talking about the workers who are the most secure, who have permanent jobs, and they are uncertain,” she said. “The situation is not sustainable at all.”

As many Palestinians have increasingly embraced a culture of consumption and debt, some have bought houses and cars they cannot afford. If salaries suddenly stop coming and people fall behind on their loan payments, the banks could have problems. And this, perhaps, could fuel a larger financial crisis that would impact food security.

mg/ha/cb
source http://www.irinnews.org

Photo: Otto Bakano/IRIN

Artisanal boats moored on a beach in Dakar, Senegal.

DAKAR,  - Senegal stopped renewing agreements allowing European fishing vessels in its waters in 2006, but now an expanding artisanal fleet and local industrial boats enjoying exclusivity under lax regulations are being blamed for malpractice and degrading the country’s main economic and food resource.

“In terms of environmental degradation, the responsibility is shared. Artisanal fishermen are responsible for habitat destruction. Although industrial vessels and foreign ships are often blamed, artisanal fishermen contribute hugely to the disappearance of species,” said Moustapha Thiam, the director of Senegal’s Maritime Fishing Authority, a Fisheries Ministry department.

Foreign industrial trawlers are often criticized for overfishing off the West African coast, where some governments are also accused of issuing unregulated licences that overlook the consequences to local economies and livelihoods.

“Industrial fishing has really reduced. Small-scale fishing is quite dynamic,” Thiam told IRIN. Of the 409,429 metric tonnes of fish caught in 2010, artisanal fishermen contributed 370,448 tonnes, according to the Maritime Fishing Authority.

Fishing is Senegal’s foremost economic activity, employing around 15 percent of the workforce – about 600,000 people – and is the main foreign currency earner. Local consumption is 28kg per person per year, twice the world average, and 75 percent of protein in the diet comes from fish.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that there were around 16,000 small fishing boats in Senegal in 2011, compared to about 5,000 in 1982. [Situation de l’immatriculation des embarcations de type artisanal]

“It is the sector with the biggest socio-economic impact locally,” said Ahmed Diamé, a Greenpeace Africa oceans campaigner. “Among the problems are the use of the wrong net size and dynamite… With free access to the resource, [artisanal] fishing has significantly increased. We have noted a reduction in catches since 2000. There is also a decline in the quality of fish caught – they are smaller,” he noted.

To boost the sector, the government subsidizes fuel and equipment for the local fishermen. “What needs to be revised is the quest for short-term profit. This is what drives the sector and what kills it. There is free access to the resource because fishing is not regulated,” said Papa Gora Ndiaye, secretary general of West Africa Fishing Policy Network (REPAO), a regional NGO.

“When we were kids, we could see big fish caught. But nowadays, we need to go very far to catch anything,” said Yakhya, a fisherman in Soumbédioune, one of the fishing ports along the shores of Senegal’s seaside capital, Dakar.

In the days when local boatmen navigated by instinct, returning to a rich spot happened by chance. “There is no more mystery. When I was young, if you found a good spot, it could take a few days to find it again,” said retired fisherman Papa Nguer. “Now all the boats have GPS [global positioning system].”

The government is trying to regulate the sector, registering and controlling the licences issued to local fishermen, but critics argue that these measures are not enough in a country where fishing is the main source of income for millions.

“The state has to decide to reduce the fishing capacity. It is useless to have fishing permits if the fishing fleet is untouched,” said Gaoussou Guèye, the head of a local association for responsible artisanal fishing.

“There are subsistence and economic issues at stake. The problem is to control without generating social catastrophes,” said Captain Djibril Diawara, the head of operations at the Fishing Monitoring and Protection Authority (DSPM).

Few industrial vessels have ventured into territorial waters since Dakar stopped renewing Fishing Partnership Agreements with the European Union. Now, the industrial fishing fleet is mainly local, others in joint venture with Europeans and there have been accusations of corruption and favouritism.

Authorities say the fleet is mostly old, poses environmental risks and often fishes in protected areas. The DSPM has six boats, none of which can reach the high seas, a plane that has been under repair for two years, and a staff of 150.

“It is an aging fleet. Most boats are more than 30 years old, which means they have more destructive fishing practices,” said the Maritime Fishing Department’s Thiam.

With the support of a programme funded by the World Bank, the government plans to reduce the number of artisanal boats by 25 percent and ground the old industrial fishing fleet, Thiam said.

Implementing the plan will be arduous. “Suggesting that the state should stop subsidizing fishermen to reduce fishing capacity raises questions about the risk of fish becoming more expensive for the Senegalese people,” said Greenpeace’s Diamé.

”Experts call for sustainable fishing and environmental protection. “The industry should be bolstered, providing it with means to use the resources in a sustainable and profitable manner.” He called for the creation of marine reserves in the high seas where fishing is banned.

“Fishing and the number of fishermen should be reduced,” Guèye said. “Not everyone can be a fisherman or a fishmonger. There should be a fisheries management plan – we cannot have congestion,” he suggested.
“It is up to the government to set up these plans. It has the responsibility to manage the resources for the future generation.”

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source http://www.irinnews.org

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Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN

Pastoralists say 30 percent of animals in the north have died so far this year

MOPTI/BAMAKO,  - Hundreds of pastoralists in the Mopti Region of central Mali are stuck between floodplains to the south and armed Islamists and rebels to the north. They are used to the hardship of successive droughts across the Sahel, but with little or no aid for their animals and severely limited access to pasture, many are becoming desperate as their livelihood and way of life becomes increasingly untenable.
“It’s all over – it’s finished,” Ibrahim Koita, head of the Society of Social Welfare in Mopti Region, told IRIN in the capital, Bamako, where he is trying to pressure donors for more aid.

Pastoralists feel the government and aid agencies have sidelined them, giving them too few of the things they urgently need, like food and water for animals. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that livestock earns Mali 41 percent of its annual budget.

After the poor harvest in 2011, most pastoralists had no fodder, making them totally reliant on pasture or increasingly unaffordable animal food – a 50kg bag of fodder has risen from 7,500 CFA (US$14) to 10,000 CFA ($18) – while livestock prices have plummeted as many desperate owners try to sell their animals before they starve to death.

“Not much is going at all to help animals,” said Soulaylla Dicko, a chief of the Peulh ethnic group and leader of the pastoralist association in Thioki, Timbuktu. “We can’t neglect pastoralists any longer – the government must do something.”

Herds are shrinking year by year in some regions. Wealthy herders once had up to 500 animals at a time, now they are down to an average of 40, and one in four pastoralists now owns just three or four animals, said Marc Chapon, head of NGO Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF) – Agronomists and Veterinarians without Borders – in Mali. “It’s nothing.”

René Alphonse, president of Mali’s National Federation of the Livestock Industry (FEBEVIM), estimates that 30 percent of the animals in the north have died. This loss comes on top of significant stock deaths in the drought of 2009-10.

Stuck

Pastoralists from the northern regions of Adara, Azawad, Tiilenis and Gourma generally head to southern Mali, and into Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire or as far as Togo in search of pasture before the rainy season, from June to October. Once the rains arrive they move north to avoid the Inner Niger Delta flood zone, keeping away from agricultural land, to reach fresh pasture again.

Aid agencies say these movements started in January this year, six months earlier than usual, because of pasture shortages. But at the end of July pasture had yet to appear in the north.

The Islamist takeover of the north has left many pastoralists in Mali’s inner delta region stranded: they cannot cross the Niger River to the south as their animals are too weak, and it is too dangerous for them to head north. Alphonse says around 75 percent of the herders in Mopti Region face this plight.

Many pastoralists are too scared to go north. Displaced pastoralists from Gao and Timbuktu told IRIN that the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, Jihadist fighters who want to impose Sharia law, took their strongest animals, slit the throats of others, and killed herders who resisted.

“You give it [the animal] or they shoot you,” said Ansigue Moussa Ouologuem, Mali head of the Association for the Promotion of Livestock in the Sahel and Savannah (APESS) in Mopti town. “MNLA, Ansar Dine, MUJAO [Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa] – they are all the same. Criminals.”

Many animals are too weak to walk to the largest regional livestock market, 140km north of Timbuktu. “They’ll die en route,” said Chapon, or if they do get there, “they’re so thin no one wants to buy them.”

Animals that do not move out of the flood zone in the Inner Niger Delta also risk death, this time from floodwater. Each year AVSF pulls thousands of carcasses of animals too weak to escape, from the lakes and floodplains in Mali’s delta region. In 2005-06 they removed 14,000 animals from Gounam near the river in Timbuktu, said Chapon, and are sending teams to the region to do the same this year.

As the animals weaken, so do their prices. A goat can sell for just 1,000 CFA ($1,80) in the Bourem region of Gao according to one donor, while Chapon said the highest price would be 12,000 CFA ($22), down from 25,000 ($46) in good times.

Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN

Cattle in Mopti region cannot head north

NGO Oxfam notes that terms of trade for bartering animals and cereals have at least doubled in northern zones – farmers must now exchange two goats, not one, for a 50kg bag of millet.

Clashes

Tensions are also mounting between pastoralist groups, and between them and farmers, many told IRIN. APESS Mali head Ouologuem says around 48 people died near Diengourou in eastern Mopti region, most of them Peulhs, when they were attacked by Dogon farmers who said they were encroaching on their land. “Clashes occur all the time,” he told IRIN.

Mali’s Minister of Agriculture, Moussa Sidibé, told IRIN: “We need to find alternative routes for the pastoralists in the inner delta…Tensions will get worse in October [when the rainy season ends] if they haven’t moved on.” He said the ministry would soon host a forum between cattle-breeders and farmers in the region to discuss the problem.

Other pastoralists who fled conflict are stuck in neighbouring countries. Some 61,000 Malians fled west to Mauritania, 38,200 went east to Niger, and 56,000 headed south to Burkina Faso, according to the latest reports by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), leaving aid agencies struggling to shift their responses to cater to the animals’ needs.

Other herdsmen have fled to towns and cities where they beg to get by. “Pastoralists are coming to towns like Ségou and Bamako and are begging, becoming bandits – this is what it’s come to,” Alphonse said.

Aid “too late”

Herders are desperate for food and water for their animals, but far too little animal fodder has been given in this year’s drought response, said AVSF, APESS and FEBEVIM. France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the European Union have funded livestock responses, but with an emphasis on health over food.

“Partners have given money for vaccinations and anti-parasite medicines for animals, but very little food,” said Chapon. “Now it’s too late…. The needs were not well anticipated.”

This is partly because it is very difficult to transport truck-loads of animal fodder to northern Mali in the current security conditions, said Maguette Ndiaye, head of emergency operations at FAO in Mali. The food agency’s work, targeting thousands of the most vulnerable pastoralists in the north, has moved to Koulikoro in western Mali because of insecurity.

The Mali government has also said they would try to give fodder for animals, but “hardly anything’s arrived,” said Chapon. “I don’t think they are very aware of the problem.”

The government’s capacity is weak. Agriculture Minister Moussa Sidibé told IRIN the government had set aside 1 million CFA ($1,800) for livestock, but the programme had “slowed down” because of the political crisis in the north. “We would like to subsidize animal feed, but we can’t afford to,” he told IRIN.

Agencies are doing what they can for livestock in the north.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), AVSF- partly supported by FAO – and the International Foundation for Development Alternatives have vaccinated millions of animals.

ICRC has also deepened several water holes, distributed 500 metric tonnes of animal fodder, and is now undertaking destocking, an emergency coping activity that AVSF says is misunderstood and often neglected by donors.

Activities requiring medium-term support include post-crisis restocking, and more water points on transhumance routes, along which animals move from one seasonal pasture to another. FEBIVEM’s Alphonse showed IRIN a photo of a cow lying dead in a field of grass. “This animal had pasture but no water,” he said, outlining a cruel paradox affecting thousands of animals.

No funding for resilience

Donors are always much more focused on giving people food, but “people live off their animals… they will prioritize their animals’ health over their family’s food, as this will help them to keep going for longer, giving them milk and allowing them to buy cereals,” Chapon pointed out.

“People like to talk about resilience – well this [giving animals help] is resilience in its purest form,” he said.
This argument was put forward decades ago by academics, but has had little traction. To Tjoelker, head of programmes at the Dutch Embassy recognized that donors prefer feeding humans to almost all other forms of aid. “In emergency situations, aid agencies do focus first on people – that is the first need,” she said.

But just as more help is needed, livestock project funding is being slashed as part of sweeping donor cuts to penalize Mali’s mutinous soldiers for ousting the President and weakening its fragile democracy.

Affected projects include a USAID-led initiative to improve government research into animal feed needs, the effects of climate change on livestock prices in the north, monitoring water levels, as well as animal food voucher distributions and veterinary training programmes.

Unless donors and the government focus more on pastoralists, Mali’s standing as one of the top three livestock producers in the region (Burkina Faso and Nigeria are the others) could change, said one livestock specialist. “This could have a catastrophic impact on getting pastoralists out of crisis this year.”

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source http://www.irinnews.org

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