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| | Baghdad gets one hour of electricity |  |
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تاريخ التسجيل : 07/10/2009
 | موضوع: Baghdad gets one hour of electricity  الثلاثاء 18 يناير 2011 - 4:47 | |
| Baghdad gets one hour of electricity  Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, home to more than six million people, hardly gets one hour of non-interrupted electricity supplies every 24 hours.
The city has plunged into darkness with the country’s national grid still unable to increase supplies despite billions of dollars in investments.Seven years after the 2003-U.S. invasion, power production in the country is still below levels reached under former leader Saddam Hussein.
Prior to his downfall, Baghdad used to have up to 18 hours of electricity supplies a day.Residents are furious but can do nothing in a country where issues of personal security take precedence over anything else.Karim Zamel said there was no way for Iraqis to believe any promises from the government."Government officials have bombarded us with promises as if the country would soon starting exporting electricity to neighboring states," he said.
He said like almost everything in Iraq, electricity conditions have been worsening and the current situation is totally opposite what the government says.Tayeba Jabbar said there was nothing to feel "optimistic" about in Iraq. "When you get electricity for just one hour a day, how could you have any trust in your government."
Many Iraqis turn to the private sector and purchase electricity form owners of small generators in their neighborhoods. But the electricity from these generators is only used for lighting and is not strong enough to operate gadgets like refrigerators, heaters or coolers.Sameer Qassab said private electricity entrepreneurs charge exorbitant sums of money every month "just to help us turn on our lamps."
Azzaman Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments   Links to this post Labels: Mehdi Army, Moqtada al-Sadr, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, the Iraqi government if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-1906657392906782164")); } Christian Club raided by Iraqi police  Eight men carrying handguns and steel pipes raided a Christian nongovernmental organization here on Thursday night, grabbing computers, cellphones and documents, and threatening the people inside, according to members of the group.
"They came in and said, 'You are criminals. This is not your country. Leave immediately,’ " said Sharif Aso, a board member of the organization, the Ashurbanipal Cultural Association. "They said, 'This is an Islamic state.’
The intruders wore civilian clothes, said Mr. Aso and others at the organization, but their arrival was preceded by three police vehicles that blocked off the street. He said the men stole his ring and bashed him on the leg with a pistol.
Ashurbanipal, named for an Assyrian king, primarily publishes writings in the Assyrian language, but it also runs a private club that serves alcohol, which appeared to be the reason for Thursday’s raid. The intruders smashed liquor bottles and a glass refrigerator case before throwing a gas canister through the window of a car belonging to a member of the group.
The episode is the latest in a recent flurry of attacks on those who sell alcohol in Baghdad. On Wednesday, two shop owners said they were raided in similar fashion, also by men dressed as civilians working with the police. The crackdown has stirred fears among some here of an accelerated movement toward strict Islamic law, especially since the return to Iraq of Moktada al-Sadr, the fiery anti-American cleric, a week ago.
In November, Baghdad’s provincial government invoked a 1996 Saddam Hussein-era resolution to ban the sale of alcohol, using it to close bars and nightclubs even though the resolution has not been ratified by Parliament.
A police major said the men who raided the club were employees of the provincial government. But the leader of the provincial government said they were police officers in civilian clothes."We are a Muslim country, and everyone must respect that," said Kamil al-Zaidi, the chairman of the Baghdad Provincial Council.
Because nearly all alcohol sellers in Iraq are Christians, the campaign against alcohol overlaps eerily with recent attacks on Christians, including an attack at a church in October that left nearly 60 people dead. Alcohol, some say, is just an excuse.
"If a Christian sells flowers, they kill him," said Ameen Chamo, who said a raid on his store on Wednesday inflicted $70,000 in damages. "If he sells a goose, they kill him. It makes no difference."Others at Ashurbanipal disputed this, saying that they were raided because they sold alcohol. All said that after this raid, they were eager to leave the country.
Already, Mr. Aso said, most members of the organization have left Iraq out of fear for their safety. Thousands of Christian families have left or sought refuge in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region in the north since the deadly October siege on Our Lady of Salvation, a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad. The Islamic State of Iraq, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the siege.
More than half of Iraq’s Christians have left since the American-led invasion in 2003, when there were believed to be 800,000 to 1.4 million Christians in the country."We will leave," said Mr. Chamo, who said that his shop had stopped selling alcohol since Nov. 25, when he received a letter from the Baghdad Provincial Council ordering him to do so. "The Americans are not protecting us."
He added, "We want the Americans to tell Maliki to stop this," referring to the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.Badal Ilyas, a store owner who said his shop was raided and destroyed on Wednesday, was adamant about staying. "This is my country," he said. "I was bringing democracy to Baghdad."
But he said the raids had been a frightening reminder of the recent past, when Islamist militias terrorized anyone diverging from strict Islamic law."Before, the government fought the militias," Mr. Ilyas said. "Now, they’re operating with the cooperation of the government."
The New York Times with Khalid D. Ali contributing to this reporting.
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post Labels: democratic Iraq, Iraqi Christians, Iraqi Government, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-6970139945422238198")); } Iraqi Christians flee to Turkey  Terrorised by mounting extremist attacks, more and more Iraqi Christians are fleeing in panic to neighbouring Muslim-majority Turkey, among them lone minors sent away by desperate parents.
In Istanbul, a tiny Chaldean Catholic community has embraced the refugees, serving as their first point of shelter before the United Nations or local civic groups extend a helping hand.
The number of arrivals, available statistics show, has sharply increased since October 31 when gunmen stormed a Baghdad church, killing 44 worshippers, two priests and seven security guards, in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda's local affiliate.
"We saw many newcomers after the attack. We saw they had made no preparation and had no savings," said Gizem Demirci, an activist at the Association for Solidarity with Asylum-Seekers and Migrants."Moreover, we began to receive minors... whose families are still in Iraq but had just enough money to send away a son or a daughter," she added without offering any specific figures.
The violence prompted an emergency summit by Iraq's top Muslim clergy in Copenhagen this week that issued a fatwa Friday that "condemns all atrocities against the Christians," said Andrew White, a participant and British vicar at St. George's Church in Baghdad.
The Shiite and Sunni religious leaders, who gathered at Denmark's initiative, urged Baghdad to criminalise inciting religious hatred and to "put the issue on the agenda of the next Arab Summit" to be held in the Iraqi capital in March, White told AFP in Copenhagen.
In Istanbul, among the newest refugees is 21-year-old Sandra, whose family fled Baghdad in mid-November, alarmed by the church carnage and ensuing threats by Islamist extremists. Christians represent less than two percent of the population in Muslim-majority Iraq.
"Some of our neighbours were killed in that attack," Sandra told AFP at the Chaldean Catholic Church in Istanbul. "At any time, it would have been our turn, the turn of our church."Her father, a cook, made the decision to flee when the family felt the menace had reached their doorstep.
"We were at home with my mother and sister. At about 10:30 pm, some men stormed in and made us lie down. They told us: 'Either you become Muslims or you go. Otherwise we kill you'," Sandra recounted.
In her dreams, Australia is the final destination in a journey to a new life. Going back home is not even an option."Going back to what? Getting killed?" she grumbled.For Israel Hannah too, Iraq is now a lost homeland after an arson burnt down his grocery, destroying also any remaining resolve he had to stand strong and carry on.
The 61-year-old looks forward to a new start, probably in North America or Australia, as he already savours the little joys of tranquil life in Istanbul, where a modest, tiny flat accommodates his five-member family.
"You feel free any time. You go to church at any time on Sundays, or you visit this or that. We feel safe and we are thanking God," he said, still astonished at having celebrated Christmas in broad daylight, amid Muslim neighbours.
The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Istanbul is alarmed over the rising number of refugees, stressing they now come even from the country's relatively peaceful Kurdish-majority north that used to serve as a safe haven. But Archbishop Francois Yakan said some southern Iraqi Christians who had fled to the north no longer feel safe there, either.
According to church records, some 150 Christian families, or more than 600 people, arrived in Turkey in December, almost the same as during the whole of 2009."What worries us is that Christians in northern Iraq too are now scared. There are now people who come from Arbil, Zakho and Sulaimaniyah," the archbishop said, referring to three cities in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region.
"These are people who lived in peace previously," he said.For migrants' activist Demirci, the October bloodshed at the Baghdad church was the landmark event that fuelled the exodus."They were scared and left just like that," she said of the Iraqi Christians.
Figures by the Turkey office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees tend to confirm the trend: the number of asylum applications by Iraqi Christians has more than doubled in three months -- from 183 in October to 428 in December.
By Nicolas Cheviron Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-2313117627755586595")); } Iraq blames Iran for pollution  The Iraqi guards patrolling the frontier with Iran are supposed to be on the lookout for smugglers, drug traders and weapons traffickers. For the past six months, however, the border guards in southern Iraq have spent much of their time trying to keep out another unwanted visitor - polluted water.
According to officials and residents living along the border zone close to Basra, 590 kilometres south of Baghdad, the problem of waste water, thick with salt and toxins, seeping in from Iran has become acute, poisoning the land and making farming all but impossible.
"We just finished putting up a 40km dirt berm along a stretch of the frontier," said Colonel General Dharfar Nathmi Jamal, head of the Iraqi Border Patrol in Basra province. While the berm is intended to have a deterrent effect on smugglers, it is also designed with water in mind.
"The berm will help to stop the waste water draining from Iran and coming straight into Iraq," said Gen Jamal. "We need to limit the pollution of the lands. It's sad but it's now so bad that there will be no wheat production here this year."
The berm project, worth US$82,600 (Dh303,000), is part of a wider plan that also includes the renovation of an old wall between Iran and Iraq, built at the time of their eight-year war in the 1980s. Officials hope that renewed fortification will play a dual role, keeping out unwanted people and water contaminated with salt.
"My job is to protect the country and I will work hard to protect Iraq and its people, whatever the cause of the damage," said Gen Jamal, shrugging off the suggestion that border guards are not employed to protect the environment. "We are supporting the Iraqi farmers and we will continue to do that by trying to keep the polluted water out."
Salinisation of water supplies has had a devastating effect on southern Iraq, a result of drastically reduced flows from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
As the volumes of fresh water coming down these historic channels is cut - largely due to intensive extraction by people further north in Iraq, and in Syria and Turkey - sea water has backed-up into the Shatt Al Arab channel.
The effect on underground reservoirs and agriculture has been severe, forcing many farmers off the land and rendering the water undrinkable. The local government last year had to step in and send tankers of potable water out to residents.
It has also led to thick layers of salt forming on the surface of the land, both on the Iraq and Iranian side of the border, that kill off plant life. To clean the soil for agriculture, the salt must be washed off - but the process of flushing it away only ends up creating more polluted water.
This has become a key area for controversy, with the salty discharge from cleaned land in Iran being channelled across the border into Iraq, rather than properly treated with expensive desalination techniques on the Iranian side.In the village of Siba, the problem has been worsening since the summer.
"My land is salty because the Iranian push their waste salt water directly onto it," said one farmer, Abu Dham. His entire wheat crop had been destroyed by the salinisation, he said, leaving him with no choice but to leave the land and work in Basra city.
"There are at least 30 other farmers from Siba like me, with the same problem," he said. "We need the Iraqi government to solve the problem."Last week, Iran's acting foreign minister, Ali Akbar Saleh, was in Baghdad on a working visit with his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari. Disputes over water, as well as border demarcations, were high on the agenda.
In addition to the salt discharge, there has been a long-running dispute between Tehran and Baghdad over the Karun and Karkha rivers, both of which have been diverted away from southern Iraq, robbing Basra of crucial supplies of fresh water.
Mr Saleh promised to send research teams out to the areas on the Iranian side of the border, assuring the Iraqi government they would "locate and stop" the problem of saltwater discharge.Basra's governor, Shiltagh Aboud, said an Iranian engineering team was expected to arrive in the coming weeks to assess the problem.
"They have promised to pump the salty waste water to the Gulf, rather than onto Iraqi lands," he said. "There have been some attempts on the Iranian side to stop the drainage, but the damage is still continuing,"
Mr Aboud warned that even if urgent action were taken, the effects of the pollution would be felt in the area for years to come."The impact of this on the environment are long lasting," he said. "It's not an easy matter to rectify and clean up the damage that has been done."
Nizar Latif, The National. To cotnact the author please e-mail: nlatif@thenational.ae
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Iran, Iraq Water Supplies, Iraqi Government, Pollution if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-1732974314910611205")); } Iraq urged to stop deportation refugees  Amnesty International has urged the Iraqi authorities to prevent the forcible return to Iran of several members of the Ahwazi Arab minority amid fears that they would be at serious risk of torture and other human rights violations in Iran.
Two recognized refugees, Shahhed Abdulhussain Abbas Allami and Saleh Jasim Mohammed al-Hamid, are currently being detained in Basra prison, while a third man has already been transferred to the custody of Iranian officials in Iraq.
At least three other Ahwazi Arabs, all members of the same family, are also at serious risk. They are believed to have been detained by the Iraqi authorities at the request of the Iranian government because their father is an Iranian political activist, currently exiled. Two members of this family, both aged under 18, have already been handed to Iranian officials in Iraq and their subsequent fate is unknown.
"The Iraq authorities must not allow these members of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority to be sent back to Iran," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"In the past other cases of Ahwazi Arabs forcibly returned to Iran have faced torture. Amnesty International fears that these individuals would be at real risk of human rights violations if they are returned, and it would be a breach of Iraq’s obligations under international law."
States are not permitted to return individuals to countries where they would be at risk of torture or other serious human rights violations.These cases arise at a time when the Iraqi government is said to be negotiating a cooperation agreement with Iran which would allow the two states to hand over or exchange convicted prisoners.
The five members of the same family who are under threat include Zeydan Abbas, Haydar Abbas and Jabran Jemah Abbas, all of whom are currently detained at Al-Amara prison. Their younger brother and sister, Walid Jemah Abbas and Nasren Jemah Abbas, both aged under 18, were detained with them but have already been handed into the custody of Iranian officials in Iraq.
The Ahwazi Arab minority is one of many minority communities in Iran. Much of Iran's Arab community lives in the south-western province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq. Most are Shi’a Muslims but some are reported to have converted to Sunni Islam, heightening government suspicion about Ahwazis, who complain that they are marginalized and subject to discrimination.
Iraq is a state party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and to the Convention against Torture (CAT), treaties which prohibit the forcible return of anyone to a country where they would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.The international law principle of non-refoulement also prohibits the forcible return of anyone to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights abuses, including torture.
By Amnesty International Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz 0 comments Links to this post Labels: Amnesty International, Iraqi Refugees if (window['tickAboveFold']) {window['tickAboveFold'](document.getElementById("latency-8853327276425109853")); } Fallujah: City of no children  It was recently reported that doctors had advised women in Fallujah not to give birth. There are many medical reasons for infertility which might shatter the dreams of a young woman. It is not difficult to imagine how heartbreaking it must be for a woman who is advised that she can never bear children. But for the young women of an entire city – tens of thousands of them – to be advised not to give birth, how can one imagine such collective pain? But perhaps it does not matter – one life is a tragedy, a million a statistic? Certainly this episode attracted limited press attention. Media Lens highlighted an interesting contrast with the attention directed at the lady who chucked a cat into a bin – one cat confined for a few hours was a tragedy.
This year the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published a study, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009" by Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi. The report concludes "results confirm the reported increases in cancer and infant mortality which are alarmingly high. The remarkable reduction in the sex ratio in the cohort born one year after the fighting in [Falluja] 2004 identifies that year as the time of the environmental contamination." It was this increase in the incidence of child cancer and deformities which resulted in women being advised not to give birth. Fallujah is not the only city witnessing skyrocketing rates of child cancer. "The rapidly soaring child cancer rate in the southern Iraqi province of Basra has prompted the officials in the country to open the country’s first specialist cancer hospital for children in the province’s capital. […] Since 1993, Basra province has witnessed a sharp rise in the incidence of childhood cancer. 'Leukemia (a type of blood cancer) among children under 15 has increased by about four times,’ said Dr. Janan Hasan of the hospital inaugurated on Thursday in the southern port city of Basra."
In response to such reports, I lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament highlighting the issue. This was of limited interest to my fellow parliamentarians (fewer than 20 supported it), and of no interest to the Scottish media, but it did attract the attention of a number of dedicated individuals campaigning on the issues raised by the Iraq war, including the issue very relevant to the increase in childhood cancers and birth deformities: depleted uranium (DU). I have subsequently come to appreciate their bravery and determination in the face of what would seem to be attack, denial and disinformation by a ruthless, dishonest and uncaring establishment. The Non-Aligned Movement in the UN believes at least 400,000 kg of DU shells have been fired. Precisely how many and even where is uncertain. Whether we will ever know is also uncertain. The United Nations First Committee recently voted, by an overwhelming margin, for state users of depleted uranium weapons to release data on where the weapons have been used to governments of the states affected by their use. However, four nations opposed the motion: the UK, the USA, Israel and France. Three of these nations have used DU weapons; France produces them. The resolution then went forward to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for a second vote. The result was identical. However, as such votes are non-binding, it is likely that the four nations opposed to the resolution will simply ignore it.
Alongside refusing to divulge precise details on where DU weapons were deployed, the four also voted against previous resolutions accepting that DU has the potential to damage human health (2007) and calling for more research in affected states (2008). Meanwhile the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claims that not only is the risk low, but that simple countermeasures can deal with contaminated sites. Even the latter point, with which I strongly disagree, does raise the question: if the counter-measures are so simple, why is nobody taking them in Iraq? Nicholas Wood has suggested spraying oil on and around destroyed tanks (a temporary measure to stop the dust blowing about and to discourage children from playing on them) and deploying barbed wire to barricade contaminated areas. In Iraq no such measures have been taken, nor has there been any significant clean-up, though the BBC did report a UK commitment to doing so in 2003. It should be noted that the UK’s failure to do so may constitute a war crime. Nicholas believes that these things are not being done because to do so would be an effective admission that DU might be harmful, and that is not something the UK or the US government/military are keen to admit (more on that later). Meanwhile, children continue to play in contaminated tanks.
It is not just in Iraq that little or no action is being taken. The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons reported: "In Kosovo, where most of the contaminated sites are located, and over 70 per cent of the DU was fired, there has been no programme of monitoring since UNEP’s study in 2001". The report further notes that decontamination is difficult work and it is impossible to fully remove all the contamination. It is also very costly. The Cape Arza site in Montenegro cost DM 400,000 (almost US$280,000) and took about 5,000 working person days to decontaminate 480 rounds, which in total took around twelve seconds to fire. The estimated cost of clearing up a test firing site in Indiana is $7.8bn. The report also notes that the health consequences remain unclear with a lack of research data, though it is known that internalised DU is a carcinogen. It is also know that as a DU shell hits a tank it effectively vaporises, resulting in rather a lot of carcinogenic dust. Radioactive materials do not remain radioactive forever, however. DU dust has a half-life of only 4.5 billion years. It is good to know that if we don’t bother to clean up the mess then 150 million generations or so down the line the descendants of today’s Iraqis, Afghans, etc. will only have to cope with half the radiation that people have to face today! The sun will still have half a billion years to burn.
The use of radioactive weapons in Iraq as far back as 1991 was exposed by Professor Siegwart-Horst Gunther, who found, on the highway between Baghdad and Amman, projectiles the size and shape of a cigar (fired from aeroplanes). Professor Gunther took a bullet back to Germany for testing. The bullet exhibited a radioactivity giving an effective dose of 11 to 12 microsieverts per hour and was considered highly dangerous. It was seized by German police, wearing protective clothing, and transported to a safe place. (In Germany, radiology personnel should not be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts per year.) It might also be noted that US authorities closed a DU penetrator ammunition factory on the edge of Albany in upstate New York because airborne contamination levels exceeded 150 microcurie per month, contaminating populated areas up to 26 miles away. This was the equivalent of only one or two 30 mm cannon shells per month releasing their radioactivity to the environment.
The fact that definitive evidence that the shells fired by allied force are responsible for the huge increase in cancers, stillbirths and birth deformities is limited is not surprising, as the nations that fire the shells refuse to provide accurate information on where they have been fired, making accurate statistical analysis all but impossible. However, there is abundant circumstantial evidence, as two minutes on the Internet will show (for example search for "Doug Rokke" on YouTube). Whilst it may appear a cynical view, sadly I have come to the conclusion that the UK Government and MoD are deliberately making such analyses impossible. Indeed, the level to which supporters of DU weapons will go to deny effects are quite considerable. A classical example is a communication I recently received from Roger Helbig, considered by some to be a Pentagon 'attack dog'. In a lengthy email which accused various anti-DU groups of lying, Mr Helbig also included the following quite stupendous line: "There is no such thing as a uranium weapon. That is term that they [the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons] made up to make depleted uranium kinetic energy penetrators look like weapons of mass destruction instead of tank-killing bullets." Yes you did read that correctly: there is no such thing as a uranium weapon, only a "depleted uranium kinetic energy penetrator"!
Recently I asked the Scottish Minister for Public Health and Sport, Shona Robinson, if the Scottish Government held statistics relating to the incidence of cancer, stillbirth and birth deformities in Scottish armed forces personnel and their families. She obligingly wrote to the MoD to follow up my question. I received her reply a few days ago. In summary: (1) the MoD does not believe that there is credible evidence that DU induces cancer and birth defects (2) the MoD asserts that there is no evidence that DU has been responsible for incidences of ill-health in UK forces or in civilian populations and (3) the MoD does not believe that a statistical study would be appropriate as this issue has been addressed under the auspices of the Independent Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB).
The first and third claims are clearly disputed, while the second statement is a simple lie. At a coroner’s inquest (10th September 2009) into the death of Mr Stuart Dyson a unanimous jury ruled that his death from colon cancer was caused by the DU he was exposed to in the Gulf War of 1990/91. In the USA, Leuren Moret, a geoscientist and geologist has said: "Of 251 Gulf War I veterans in Mississippi, in 67 percent of them, their babies born after the war were deemed to have severe birth defects. They had brains missing, arms and legs missing, organs missing. They were born without eyes. They had horrible blood diseases. It’s horrific." Perhaps the warning given to the women of Fallujah should have been extended to service personnel?
Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009
Bill Wilson for Scottish Left Review, Bill is MSP for the West of Scotland
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