23-01-2019

INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAy,
JANUARy 23, 2019
7
In this June 4, 2008 file photo, Palestinians unload bags of flour donated by the United States Agency
for International Development, USAID, at a depot in the West Bank village of Anin near Jenin. Tens
of thousands of Palestinians are no longer getting food aid or health services from America after the
Trump administration's decision in 2018 to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians.
Before the aid cuts were announced, it provided food aid -- branded as a gift from the American
people -- to more than 180,000 Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza on behalf of
the World Food Program.
Photo : AP
US aid cuts hit Palestinians, further
dimming hope for peace
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are
no longer getting food aid or basic
health services from America, U.S.-
funded infrastructure projects have
been halted, and an innovative peacebuilding
program in Jerusalem is scaling
back its activities, reports UNB.
The Trump administration's decision
last year to cut more than $200 million
in development aid to the Palestinians
is forcing NGOs to slash programs and
lay off staff as the effects ripple through
a community that has spent more than
two decades promoting peace in the
Middle East.
The U.S. government's development
agency, USAID, has provided more
than $5.5 billion to the Palestinians
since 1994 for infrastructure, health,
education, governance and humanitarian
aid programs, all intended to
underpin the eventual creation of an
independent state.
Much of that aid is channeled
through international NGOs, which
were abruptly informed of the cuts last
summer and have been scrambling to
keep their programs alive.
President Donald Trump says the
USAID cuts are aimed at pressuring the
Palestinians to return to peace talks,
Italy deputy
PM downplays
France migrant
remarks
Italian Deputy Premier Luigi
Di Maio has brushed off tensions
with France over
remarks about Europe's
migrant crisis, reports UNB.
Di Maio said Sunday that
France is leading colonialstyle
policies in Africa that
are "impoverishing"
Africans and driving them to
Europe's shores.
France's Foreign Ministry
then summoned the Italian
ambassador over the comments.
Di Maio told journalists
Monday that "I don't think
it's a diplomatic case." But
he insisted that "it's true,
France is one of those countries"
whose actions in Africa
contribute to migrants leaving
their homelands on dangerous
journeys.
France's Foreign Ministry
has summoned the Italian
ambassador over sharp anti-
French comments from Italy
about Europe's migrant crisis.
With Italy's government
on the defensive over recent
deaths at sea of migrants,
Italian Deputy Premier Luigi
Di Maio sought to shift the
blame onto France. Speaking
Sunday, Di Maio said
France is leading colonialstyle
policies in Africa that
are "impoverishing"
Africans and driving them to
Europe's shores.
A French diplomatic official
said Ambassador Teresa
Castaldo was questioned
Monday about the
"unfriendly and baseless"
comments. The official said
they run counter to "Franco-
Italian partnership" and the
sense of "European community."
The diplomat wasn't
authorized to be publicly
named.
but Palestinian officials say the move
has further poisoned relations after the
U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel's
capital last year. The aid groups, many
of which have little or no connection to
the Palestinian Authority, say the cuts
hurt the most vulnerable Palestinians
and those most committed to peace
with Israel.
"If you want to maintain the idea of
the peace process, you have to maintain
the people who would be part of the
peace process," said Lana Abu Hijleh,
the local director for Global Communities,
an international NGO active in the
Palestinian territories since 1995.
Before the aid cuts were announced,
it provided food aid - branded as a gift
from the American people - to more
than 180,000 Palestinians in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza
on behalf of the World Food Program.
USAID had planned to contribute $19
million a year for the next five years to
continue the project but pulled out in
August.
Global Communities can now only
provide aid to 90,000 people through
March, and Abu Hijleh had to lay off
around 30 staff, including in Gaza,
where unemployment exceeds 50 percent.
"It really hurts, because you're
talking about the most basic level of
assistance," she said. The average family
receives a monthly voucher worth
around $130.
Sadeqa Nasser, a woman living in
Gaza's Jebaliya refugee camp, used her
voucher to support her disabled husband,
their six children and four grandchildren.
She says her sons each bring in less
than $5 a day from odd jobs. "They cannot
afford to buy food for their families,
so I help them out," she said.
Since the aid was cut off, she's been
able to qualify for welfare payments
from the Palestinian Authority, which
itself relies heavily on foreign aid.
"Without it we would go hungry," she
said.
Funding has also been cut for a fiveyear,
$50 million program run by a
coalition of NGOs to provide health
services, including clinical breast cancer
treatment for some 16,000 women
and treatment for some 700 children
suffering from chronic diseases.
Infrastructure projects, including
desperately needed water treatment
facilities in the blockaded Gaza Strip,
have also been put on hold.
Australia urges Indonesia to respect
Bali bombing victims
Australia's prime minister said on Tuesday
he would be disappointed if radical cleric
Abu Bakar Bashir were released from prison
early and urged Indonesia to show respect
for the victims of the 2002 Bali nightclub
bombings that the firebrand preacher
inspired, reports UNB.
Indonesia's top security minister, Wiranto,
said on Monday that Indonesian President
Joko Widodo had asked him to coordinate a
review of all aspects of the planned release of
the 80-year-old cleric following domestic
and international criticism.
Australia has been in top-level discussions
with the Indonesia since last week when the
decision was announced to release Bashir,
the spiritual leader of bombers who attacked
nightclubs on Bali island and that killed 202
people, including 88 Australians.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia
would protest if Bashir were released
early as planned, after serving nine years of a
15-year sentence. "I would obviously be very
disappointed about that - like other Australians
would - and will register that disappointment
and quite strong feelings about
that," Morrison told 4CA Radio in the Australian
city of Cairns. "We don't want this
character able to go out there and incite the
killing of Australians and Indonesians,
preaching a doctrine of hate," Morrison
added. Morrison told Indonesia "respect
must be shown for the lives of those who are
lost."
Widodo on Friday said he had agreed to
release Bashir on humanitarian grounds.
The announcement came during campaigning
for a presidential election due in April in
which opponents of Widodo have tried to
discredit him as insufficiently Islamic.
Australian survivors of the Bali attacks and
victims' relatives and friends urged against
Bashir's release.
Phil Britten was captain of a Perth-based
Australian Rules football club and was with
19 teammates in a Bali nightclub when a
bomb exploded, killing seven club members.
"Seven of my friends died, they don't get
the chance to live out the rest of their lives in
peace. Why should he (Bashir)? I think it's
just appalling," Britten told The West Australian
newspaper. Australian Peter Hughes
suffered burns to 50 percent of his body
when a bomb detonated in another Bali
nightclub. "He probably deserves the death
penalty more so than the guys that actually
did it themselves," Hughes said of Bashir. "I
believe he was totally responsible."
Australian Carmen Cacha, who lost her son in the 2002 Bali bombings, looks
at her son's photograph while paying her respects at the Bali Memorial
Monument in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. Photo : AP
EU sanctions
4 Russians
over Skripal
case
The European Union (EU)
on Monday imposed sanctions
on four members of the
GRU, the Russian military
intelligence service, in
response to the poisoning of
former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal and his daughter in
2018, reports UNB.
The EU accused the Russians-two
agents, as well as
the head and the deputy
head of the GRU-of orchestrating
the "possession,
transport and use" of the
nerve agent used in a failed
attempt to assassinate the
double agent.
The agents are accused of
using pseudonyms of
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan
Boshirov, but the sanctions
order confirms reports
that identify them as Anatoly
Chepiga and Alexander
Mishkin, both 39 years old.
Besides the measures
against the four GRU officers,
the EU also slapped
asset freezes and travel bans
on five Syrians related to
Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad's alleged chemical
weapons program.
The Russian foreign ministry
denied the charges, saying
the claims against its
personnel had been invented
by Britain for its own
diplomatic interests.
"We reserve the right to
take retaliatory measures
over this unfriendly step,"
the ministry said in a statement.
Skripal, aged 67, and his
34-year-old daughter Yulia,
were found unconscious on
a bench outside a shopping
center in Britain's southwestern
city of Salisbury on
March 4, 2018.
"An information campaign
unleashed by the British
authorities over this case
primarily has a domestic
agenda. It is telling that its
new round coincides with a
new crisis in Brexit talks," it
said.
Skripal, aged 67, and his
34-year-old daughter Yulia,
were found unconscious on
a bench outside a shopping
center in Britain's southwestern
city of Salisbury on
March 4, 2018.
The Skripals survived the
attack but a British woman
was killed in June after her
partner picked up a discarded
perfume bottle that investigators
believe was used to
carry Novichok, a series of
nerve agents.
Following the incident,
Britain expelled a number of
Russian diplomats. The
United States and a number
of European states supported
London by also expelling
Russian diplomats from
their countries. Russia
expelled an equal number of
foreign diplomats in
response.
Zimbabwe leader:
Violence by security
forces ‘unacceptable’
Zimbabwe's president calls violence by security
forces "unacceptable" and says it will be
investigated after a week of economic crisis
and crackdown in which activists said a
dozen people were killed, reports UNB.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday
called for a "national dialogue" among
political parties. He spoke upon returning
home after skipping a visit to the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland to deal
with unrest.
Zimbabwe's military was in the streets last
week for the first time since post-election
violence in August in which six people were
killed. This time, people reported being
hunted down in their homes by security
forces and severely beaten.
Mnangagwa says chaos and insubordination
will not be tolerated and "if required, heads
will roll."
He defends the dramatic fuel price increase
that began the unrest.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, left, arrives at Robert
Mugabe International Airport in Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, Jan. 21,
2019. Mnangagwa arrived in Harare late Monday after cutting short his
fund-raising trip in order to address the country's economic crisis and
crackdown.
Photo : AP
Afghan officials: Death toll rises
to 45 in Taliban attack
Afghanistan was reeling on Tuesday
from a brazen Taliban assault on a military
base in the country's east the previous
day that killed at least 45 people
and wounded as many as 70, most of
them military personnel, according to
provincial officials, reports UNB.
There were fears, however, that the
death toll from the daytime assault on
the base, which also serves as a training
center for a pro-government militia
and is run by the country's intelligence
service, was even higher.
The attack began when a suicide
bomber first drove a Humvee into the
base in eastern Maidan Wardak
province and detonated his load as he
rammed the vehicle into the main
building there, according to Khawanin
Sultani, a council member.
The building collapsed from the
explosion, which likely contributed to
the high casualty numbers.
The Taliban, who promptly claimed
responsibility in a statement to the
media just hours after the attack, later
said in a separate statement that they
had met again on Monday with U.S.
representatives to discuss "ending the
invasion of Afghanistan" in talks that
would continue on Tuesday. They are
meeting in Qatar, where the Taliban
have a political office.
Australian scientists evaluate health
of world’s biggest coral reef
An extensive study into the
health of Australia's Great
Barrier Reef is underway
this month, with a 25-day
data collecting journey
canvassing bleach affected
parts of the reef not
observed since 2016.
The Australian Institute
of Marine Science
(AIMS) revealed details
of the mission on Monday,
with the organization's
largest research
vessel carrying a team of
18 specialists to survey
the damage done by
recent coral bleaching
events, as well as collecting
general data about
marine life, reports UNB.
AIMS senior research
scientist Dr Line Bay, who
was on board for the first
half of the trip, told Xinhua
that coral reefs are particularly
sensitive to the effects
of global warming, making
it vitally important to
monitor them.
"We hadn't been to that
part of the reef since before
the bleaching so we went
back to resurvey these
reefs to look at the health
and condition of both the
coral communities, but
also fish populations and
sharks," Bay said.
Coral bleaching occurs
when coral reefs are
exposed to higher than
usual water temperatures
and prolonged periods of
direct sunlight.
The Great Barrier Reef
experienced two significant
bleaching events in
2016 and 2017, the consequences
of which were
only just starting to be
understood.
Bay's team made the
most of the 34.9-meter
modern research vessel,
Solanda, using the boat's
onboard wet lab to conduct
heat stress tests on
corals which had survived
bleaching events.
While the study is still
underway, Bay is tentatively
optimistic about her
findings so far, saying that
not only did she see low
numbers of a notorious
species of starfish which
damages the reef, but also
seeing some resilience in
the reef itself.
"What we could see is
that there was variation
among species, so not all
coral species responded in
the same way. We expected
to find that," Bay said.
"However, we could also
see that we're getting variation
among individuals.
And we take that as being
a positive sign because if
there's some individuals
that do better than others
then there's the potential
for adaptation."
Coral reefs are widely
recognized as being highly
sensitive to anthropogenic
warming, which
considering the vital part
they play in supporting
life both above and below
the water, Bay said is concerning
for all.
"I think that there's no
doubt that we need action
on climate change, it's a
problem we have to tackle
on a global level," she
said.
The voyage departed
Cooktown, a town in
northeastern Australia, on
Jan. 4 and will conclude
its journey on Jan. 29.
The simultaneousness of the events -
the deadly attack, one of the worst Taliban
assaults on Afghan forces in recent
years - and the Qatar meeting that was
meant to pave way for peace talks
aimed at resolving Afghanistan's 17-
year war underscored the audacity of
the insurgents in the face of stepped-up
U.S. peace efforts.
The Taliban, who now hold sway in
almost half of Afghanistan, carry out
attacks on a daily basis, mainly targeting
the country's beleaguered security
forces.
The base that was hit is located on the
outskirts of Maidan Shar, the provincial
capital, about 40 kilometers (25 miles)
from Kabul. Sultani said that after the
Taliban bombing, four other attackers
engaged in a shootout with Afghan
troops and that all the attackers were
killed.
"The main building inside the base
collapsed and most of the bodies were
under the destroyed building," he said.
A provincial security official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to talk to
the media, told the AP that he personally
counted as many as 75 dead bodies at
the base.
Dozens of ambulances took the
wounded to the main provincial hospital
as well as to Kabul for further treatment,
he said, adding that there were
fears the death toll would keep rising.
The blast was so strong that even on
distant houses seen from the base the
windows of the civilian homes were
shattered, he said.
2 killed in Ohio
plane crash: report
A DC-3 plane crashed in Ohio on Monday
morning shortly after take-off,
killing the only two people aboard,
media reported, reports UNB.
No one on the ground was injured in
the crash in Wayne County, about 96
km south of Cleveland, and engine
issues may be the cause, ABC Cleveland
affiliate reported, citing the Ohio State
Highway Patrol.
According to the Federal Aviation
Administration, the plane was manufactured
in 1942 and the crash is still
under investigation.
The Douglas DC-3 plane first flew in
1935 and is one of the most popular
propeller-driven aircraft. Thousands of
the planes are still in service around the
world.