Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer

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8 ANALYSIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 Past haunts the opposition Ali al Matani ali.matani2@gmail.com Jobs for youth WHILE the governmental ofices and agencies, represented by the Ministry of Manpower, are doing great efforts to generate job opportunities for Omani youth in the private sector; posting vacancies on social media websites and social forums and publishing new job vacancies in local newspapers, we noticed a wave of reluctance on the part of the youth for whom these vacancies are generated; the youth refuse most of job opportunities in the private sector. The statistics published from January 5 to March 19, 2013 — of the number of Omanis who have been called upon to attend job interviews and process the legal procedures for joining in the private sector, stand at 15,000. The disturbing fact is that only 1,037 job-seekers accepted the jobs offered. This number is less that 7 per cent of the total number of job-seekers who have been called for interviews during this period. The job-seekers who accepted training before joining work are 135 and four accepted self-employment through Sanad Programme. It is a big shock for everyone! It is a big blow on the face of all efforts done to recruit the youth in the private sector. This relapse needs all frankness and openness to rectify the imbalance. The statistics released by the Ministry of Manpower regarding the number of those who have refused job opportunities offered and those who didn’t have the initial interviews are very disturbing and forms a catastrophe which rings alarm bells to review the policies and procedures adopted to tackle this issue wisely. Everyone should be in the big picture. If the efforts done aim to generate job opportunities in the private sector for 20,000 job-seekers throughout 2013, while the irst quarter has gone and only 1,000 have been recruited, there is, for sure, a gap that must be addressed and tackled. It is obvious that things haven’t gone as planned earlier. All shaikhs, walis and the members of Majlis Addawla and Majlis Ash'shura, in addition to parents should be in the picture to have a real and true idea about the reality of the situation. Moreover, all those job-seekers who have refused the opportunities offered to them should be told that they have no right to ask for jobs in future in the government sector. In spite of all efforts to motivate our youth to join the private sector, by raising the minimum wages and introducing many improvements on social insurance system, our sons and daughter don’t realise the cost of these efforts- although they are the backbone of our nation. These disturbing and alarming statistics should not be given simple review; to let them go and turn to be something that gas passed away. All apparatuses, civil institutions, Majlis Addawla and Majlis Ash’shura should make a deep and intensiied review and discuss the statistics frankly and openly. That is in order to have suggestions and mechanisms in place to tackle this catastrophe. The teamwork the Ministry of Manpower formed to search the reasons of this phenomenon and what has been done such as searching for solutions to tackle the problem of youth refusal of jobs after signing the contracts are positive steps the Ministry of Manpower has taken. But to have 10 per cent of job-seekers recruited in the private sector establishments and companies, while 90 per cent of them refused jobs offered, is a big catastrophe. Of course, all efforts done will be vanish if there will be no direct results; big ones that contribute to achieving the main goals, which are summed in abolishing the tradition of waiting for a governmental job or staying at home. We hope that we can re-calculate the whole matrix of employing again, to address this problem and wide-spread all over local communities the knowledge of appreciating private sector jobs. Today, there is no citizen who is seeking a job, there are vacancies seeking citizens! Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles during a campaign rally in Coro. — AFP THE inal stretch of Venezuela's race to replace Hugo Chavez coincides with a delicate anniversary for the opposition: 11 years since a brief coup against the late leftist leader. Acting President Nicolas Maduro used it as a foil against opposition rival Henrique Capriles at a campaign rally on Monday, accusing him of being "the same" as coup leader Pedro Carmona. "They won't return!" the crowd chanted, recalling the events of April 11-13, 2002, when the head of the chamber of commerce was briely installed as president until loyal troops brought Chavez, the elected leader, back to power. For 14 years, Chavez trounced his rivals at the ballot box, winning his last election in October against Capriles. The opposition says Chavez unfairly used state funds and looded the airwaves with mandatory broadcasts to dominate election campaigns while intimidating opponents. Maduro, it says, is using the same tactics ahead of Sunday's election. "We have proven our commitment to democracy and I believe that every day, the government shows it is the one that does not respect the rules of democracy," Tomas Guanipa, secretarygeneral of Capriles' Justice First party, said. "Despite errors that may have been committed by other actors, the leadership of the current opposition is a leadership that has committed not only to the electoral path but to the strengthening of democracy," he said. While it accuses the government of foul play, the short-lived coup has been a rallying point for Chavistas for the past decade, allowing Chavez, and now Maduro, to convince supporters that a vote for the opposition would be a vote for "fascists." "Since 2002, the opposition has been unable to shake the image of being 'golpista,'" George Ciccariello-Maher, author of "We Created Chavez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution," said, using the Spanish word for coup leader. "This is a dificulty that Capriles also has," said the political science professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Capriles, whose politics are centrist and has said he would maintain many of Chavez's popular social programmes, has denied any link to the coup. He was charged with failing to stop a violent protest against the Cuban Embassy when he was mayor of the Baruta municipality at the time, but he was acquitted, serving four months in jail while awaiting trial. Still, state-run television is airing a documentary about the Cuban Embassy siege this week that questions Capriles' role in the protests. The 40-year-old governor is Chavez’s successor claimed that the opposition was trying to recruit military oficers to support them a refusal to recognise the election if he wins, write Laurent Thomet now the fresh face of the opposition, an avowed democrat who quickly conceded defeat when Chavez defeated him by 11 points in the October 7 election. Despite the loss, Capriles gave the opposition its best score ever against Chavez, with 44 per cent of the vote. The energetic opposition leader has held huge rallies in this abbreviated campaign, attracting hundreds of thousands of people in Caracas on Sunday. But Maduro has a double-digit lead in opinion polls, riding a wave of sympathy since Chavez lost his battle with cancer on March 5. Chavez's handpicked successor claimed last week that the opposition was trying to recruit military oficers to support them in a refusal to recognise the April 14 election if he wins. The opposition countered that the government was using the military to mobilise voters. The National Electoral Council, at the request of the Maduro campaign, prepared a document for candidates to sign in which they will pledge they to recognise the election result. Capriles and Chavez signed a similar vow last year. Supporters of both candidates debated the legacies of the opposition and Chavismo in eastern Caracas, a wealthy neighbourhood seen as a Capriles bastion. Dario Ramirez, a 27-year-old Capriles campaign worker, admitted that the opposition had done "bad things" in the past but that he was more interested in talking about the future. "A country that lives in the past all the time doesn't move forward," he said. Earlier, Ramirez had debated Maduro supporters under a red tent of the Chavista campaign manned by government employees, asking why the government was unable to reduce violent crime in the past 14 years. Yill Espinoza, a 40-year-old government employee, countered the two parties that dominated Venezuelan politics for 40 years before Chavez came around had armed criminals and imposed "savage capitalism." Dozens of people gathered around the tent to listen to the debate. When another Chavista took the microphone and rambled too long about the coup and other supposed opposition ills, the crowd shouted him down, prompting the man to say "that's how fascists are, violent!" Meanwhile, the opposition and the government accused each other of seeking support from the military to meddle in the election. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina presented to the National Electoral Council (CNE) a list of active military oficers who, he said, “conduct activities to mobilise” voters for the election “in coordination with political leaders” of the ruling PSUV party. Don't despair, repair — keeping electronics in austerity AN innovative project in London is helping people to prolong the life of their electronic devices by repairing them and encouraging others to do learn to do the same. If you're the kind of person who owns a mobile phone held together with sticky tape, or your laptop is running more slowly every time you lip it open, the Restart Project could come in extremely handy. It brings together volunteer repairers, technology enthusiasts and engineers — and says that in tough inancial times it is "preparing the ground for a future economy of maintenance and repair". At a recent event in the hip Primrose Hill district, a steady stream of visitors — of all ages — arrived clutching computers and other broken-down items, many having heard about the service via Twitter. At tables dotted around the room, repairers helped open up the devices for inspection, while on the wall, a list kept track of which problems had been solved and which had not. "Why throw something away when you can ix it?" said photographer Jon Freeman, who walked away a happy man after having his If you are the kind of person who owns a mobile phone held together with sticky tape, or your laptop is running more slowly every time you lip it open, the Restart Project could come handy, says Ruben Easey girlfriend's laptop ixed. He said he only wished he had heard about the service earlier as he had recently paid Apple for a new power cord for the laptop. "It would have been simple to ix — Apple charge £65 ($100, 76 euros)." Diogo Castro, a Portuguese man in his 20s, was not quite so lucky with his computer, but did get some valuable advice about what was wrong. "My irst idea was to get a new one straight away, but unfortunately I couldn't because of the money, so this project helped me a lot," he said. Founded in 2012, the Restart Project is the brainchild of two A man ixes a radio at the Restart Project in North London. — AFP adoptive Londoners, Ugo Vallauri, from Italy, and Janet Gunter, a British-American. Having worked in the developing world for several years, they were frustrated by the amount of waste they saw whenever they returned to the West, and looked for a way to encourage people to repair and reuse their broken gadgets. "Every time we'd come back here we would see people upgrading, tossing perfectly good technology, or giving up on things without even having opened them," exclaimed Gunter. "Would you take your car to the dump when you've never even popped open the bonnet?" Environmental goals aside, the pair also hope the events will help counter the feelings of "disempowerment" people may feel from understanding virtually nothing about how everyday objects work. "When something breaks, people don't know what to do about it," said Vallauri. "They've lost trust in regards to professional repairers, they are pushed by markets and advertising to always look for the next big thing. People feel this frustration and tend to just get more and more new things, as opposed to making the best use of what they have."
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 ANALYSIS 9 Children adapt to a life marred by conflict in Aleppo Unicef says over two million children have been affected, and has warned that the country’s youth could become a “lost generation” because of insuficient support, reports Marie Roudani Goal! Goal! children scream, kicking a football around like children everywhere. But in war-ravaged Aleppo, their playground is a strip of no-man's land near buildings on the front line. In the courtyard of a school destroyed by bombing, they kick around without any apparent regard for the clatter of bullets ired by snipers from the Syrian government and dissident sides. In the poorer neighbourhoods of Aleppo, immersed in conlict for the past nine months, it was not unusual even before the war for teenagers to go out to work. But now what little childhood remained for Aleppo youngsters has gone. "They have forgotten, and in the case of the toddlers, they have never even known normal life. They haven't known anything but war," one dissident commander in the city says, with regret in his voice. "Their role models are the ighters who blow themselves up." On almost every street corner, children can be seen selling cigarettes and honey cakes to the armed dissidents ighting the government, close to pick-up trucks mounted with guns. In this environment, it's no surprise that the children have become experts on weaponry. Each time an explosion goes off, even the youngest among them profess to know the difference between a mortar shell, a rocket and tank ire. "When there's a plane, we go up on the roof to see it ire," says 11-year-old Ibrahim, his father looking on with pride. "My son has become a man very early," he says. "The only thing he's missing is an education, because there are no more schools," Ibrahim's mother adds. In the two years since an uprising against the government of President Bashar al Assad broke out, the UN children's agency Unicef estimates that one in every ive schools in Syria has been destroyed. Among the young salesmen of Aleppo, the mere mention of school elicits a bitter laugh. "What school? All our schools have been destroyed by bombing. We haven't been for a year," 12-year-old Ahmed says. "We're on the front, waging war. The women are waging an even bigger war because they have the education of future generations in their hands, the future of all of Syria," says one dissident ighter, who left behind a wife and children in his village to ight in Aleppo. Unicef says more than two million children have been affected by the conlict in Syria, and has warned that the country's youth could become a "lost generation" because of insuficient international support. Many have suffered the psychological trauma of seeing a family member killed, being separated from their parents, or being terriied by the constant threat of bombing, the agency says. The country's youngest citizens are also dying in the conlict, with at least nine children among those killed in a single air raid on the Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo on Saturday alone. In addition to being constantly exposed to weapons and violence, some Syrian children have been forced to beg or work to help support their families. In a garage in the impoverished Maslakh neighbourhood, nine-year-old Yehya leans on the hood of a car as he looks at the building across the street. "It was my school. It's been closed for a year. Since then, I've worked as a mechanic," he said. "My father's on the front lines, he's ighting Assad's soldiers. We are 11 children at home and most of my brothers are working so we can afford to eat." He works all day long at the garage to earn 200 Syrian pounds ($2) a week. The work is exhausting, and at night he goes home and collapses into sleep. "Play? When I get back home, I have neither the time nor the energy to play," he says. Others are even less fortunate than Yehya. At dawn, dozens of children can be seen combing through the piles of garbage that litter Aleppo's streets, hoping to glean something they can either eat or sell. Meanwhile, a senior UN oficial warned yesterday that aid operations for Syrian refugees have reaching breaking point in the face of a massive funding shortfall, amid fears that the number of people leeing the war-torn nation could triple. “We want to ring the alarm bell. We are at a breaking point,” said Panos Moumtzis, regional aid coordinator for the UN high commissioner for refugees. “Clearly we’re reaching a point where the increase in the crisis, the rapid deterioration, and the resources available, do not match,” he told reporters in Geneva. “It is our duty to respond,” he added. Moumtzis underlined that just $400 million has been provided from the $1.5 billion pledged for Syria-related aid operations at an international conference held in Kuwait in January. “We’re appealing to parliaments, we’re appealing to governments, we’re appealing to donors to go beyond their available funding in Western countries. And we’d also like to see the generosity announced in the Gulf to materialise as quickly as possible. Because we cannot wait any more,” he said. Almost $1.0 billion of the total sum on the table in January was pledged by Gulf nations. A total of 1.3 million people have now led Syria since protests which started in March 2011 against the Assad and have spiralled into a sectarian-tinged civil war. Underlining the inexorably rising violence, Moumtzis noted that just 12 months ago, the number of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries was 30,000. Some 200,000 people are now spilling across Syria’s borders every month in search of safety in neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, placing a huge strain on the countries’ ability to cope. “We fear that if the current level of insecurity, and the current situation of no political solution continues, we may see a doubling or a tripling, or more, of the number of refugees that we have today in the region,” said Moumtzis. Largest copper smelter ignites toxic debate By Anupama Chandrasekaran Uhuru Kenyatta (L) and Chief of Defence Forces General Julius Karangi (R) after his swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi yesterday.— Reuters Following in his father's footstep His trial at The Hague-based court is due to open on July 9. Kenyatta has repeatedly said he will cooperate with the court, even though it could mean he will be absent from Kenya for long periods, reports Peter Martell UHURU Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's founding president, takes up his father's mantle to become head of state despite facing international charges of crimes against humanity over election violence ive years ago. Uhuru, meaning "freedom", and Kenyatta, the "light of Kenya" in Swahili, carries his country's aspirations in his name, but brings with him controversy. Kenyatta, 51, and his deputy William Ruto, 46, face trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over their alleged role in having orchestrated 2007-08 postelection unrest. Last month Kenya's Supreme Court ruled that the March 4 polls were valid, with Kenyatta sworn into ofice as the country's fourth president at a ceremony yesterday. He was born in 1961 shortly after the release of his father Jomo Kenyatta from nearly 10 years' incarceration by British colonial forces, and two years before Kenya's independence. Fifty years on, the outgoing deputy prime minister and former inance minister is one of Kenya's richest and most powerful men, with the Kenyatta family owning vast swathes of some of the country's richest lands. The Kenyatta family business empire also includes major banking and media interests as well as Kenya's main dairy business. Educated in the United States at the elite Amherst College, where he studied political science and economics, he is viewed as the top political leader of the Kikuyu people, Kenya's largest tribe making up some 17 per cent of the population. However, he also appeals to Kenyans from different ethnic backgrounds, able to mingle not only with the elite he was born into but also with the average Kenyan, cracking jokes. With permanent heavy bags beneath his eyes and well dressed in pin-stripe business suits, Kenyatta exudes an image of power and entitlement. In the 1990s, he joined with the sons of other independence heroes to call for reform but gradually drew closer to autocratic former president Daniel arap Moi. "He went into politics partly because Moi asked him to, and probably because it was a good way to protect his family's interests at a time of political transition," said Daniel Branch, a professor at Britain's Warwick University. "Until recently, politics never mattered as much personally for Kenyatta as for Raila," he added, referring to his key rival he beat in the election, outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga. In the December 2007 election Kenyatta threw his weight behind then incumbent President Mwai Kibaki. The polls rapidly descended into chaos and left over 1,100 dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Delays in the 2007 vote count saw violence erupt over suspicion that Kibaki was stealing the election from Odinga, and killings mainly targeting Kikuyus spread across the country. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights has accused Kenyatta of attending meetings in early 2008 to plan for retaliatory violence by the Kikuyu. ICC prosecutors say he mobilised the Mungiki — a sect-like Kikuyu criminal organisation known for skinning and beheading its victims — to attack opposition supporters. The Kikuyu launched reprisal attacks in which homes were torched and people hacked to death. Kenyatta, listed by Forbes magazine as one of the richest people in Africa, faces ive counts including orchestrating murder, rape, forcible transfer and persecution in the polls' aftermath. His trial at The Hague-based court is due to open on July 9. Kenyatta has repeatedly said he will cooperate with the court, even though it could mean he will be absent from Kenya for long periods, with the trial expected by many to stretch for several years. "I will be able to handle the issue of clearing our names... while at the same time ensuring that the business of government continues," Kenyatta said in reply to a question about how he and Ruto will juggle court appearances and run the country. HOUSEWIFE A Puneeta was washing dishes on a foggy morning when suddenly her throat began to burn. Coughing hard and struggling to breathe, she rushed into the street to ind her neighbours running, haphazardly, in panic. "First people said there was a gas leak, and then someone said Sterlite seemed to have opened up something, and that's the cause of the throat burning," said Puneeta, 32, who is married to a isherman in the Tuticorin port town near the southern tip of India. She was referring to Sterlite Industries, a unit of London-based Vedanta Resources, which operates India's biggest copper smelter a few kilometres away, and which has been shut by authorities despite the irm denying the smelter was to blame for the emissions in the area on March 23. Other residents told similar stories. Two spoken to separately by Reuters also said the emissions caused leaves on plants and trees to wither and drop in front of their eyes, while another, who is asthmatic, said she struggled to breathe as she walked home from church and had to use her Ventolin inhaler. The plant employs 4,000 and supports thousands more jobs indirectly. But since opening in 1996 it has split this coastal city between residents who say it is crucial for the local economy and farmers and ishermen who see it as a health hazard. Similar debates are playing out across India where disputes over safety, the environment and livelihoods overshadow the efforts of Asia's third-largest economy to industrialise. Just 100 km south, in Kudankulam, ishermen are iercely opposing a new nuclear power plant. Tuticorin and Kudankulam sit on the Gulf of Munnar, famed for its pearls, coral reefs, and marine life. Environmental activists who say Sterlite is damaging the region's ecology have been ighting for years to close the smelter permanently. The state of Tamil Nadu's Pollution Control Board closed the smelter until further notice late last month and said a sensor in the smelter's smokestack showed sulphur dioxide levels were more than double the permitted concentration at the time emissions were reported. Sterlite denied the smelter, which makes half the copper India produces every year, was the source. The smelter's general manager of projects said there were no emissions at the time because the plant was starting up after two days of maintenance, not producing copper, and high readings in the smokestack were likely a result of workers recalibrating the sensors. Yesterday, a fast-track environmental court deferred until April 12 a hearing on allowing the plant to reopen, a move that is being closely watched by environmentalists and the global copper market. The plant will remain shut at least until then. The future of the plant — which is seeking approval to double its capacity to 800,000 tonnes per year — now hinges on the decision of the National Green Tribunal. A general view of Sterlite Industries’ copper plant in Tuticorin.— Reuters Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in these pages are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the opinion of the Observer.
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Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer

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