Region

BEIRUT — Six people, including four women, were killed in Syria’s Al Hol camp for displaced persons by the Daesh group in December, a Britain-based war monitor group said on Sunday.

The camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in north-eastern Syria, houses about 62,000 displaced persons, including relatives of Daesh fighters.

About 93 per cent are women and children, and about half come from Iraq.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a wide network of sources in Syria, “six assassinations were committed” in the camp by Daesh cells since the start of December.

The last victim to date was shot dead on Saturday.

The victims include three Iraqis — two men and one woman — as well as two Syrian women and one woman whose identity is unknown, the observatory said.

Since the start of the year, the number of killings in the camp has been on the rise.

Some 86 people were killed, including 63 Iraqi refugees who resided in Al Hol, according to the monitor’s toll.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman warned that “chaos and insecurity persist within the camp”, labelling it a “ticking time bomb” in comments to AFP.

In March, the Kurdish-led authorities launched a major operation in the camp during which they arrested 125 alleged Daesh members.

The UN has repeatedly warned of the deteriorating security conditions in Al Hol, which has also seen breakout attempts in recent months.

The overcrowded camp hosts about 10,000 foreign women, children and relatives of terrorists.

Since the fall of Daesh’s self-styled “caliphate” in March 2019, Syria’s Kurds and the United Nations have repeatedly urged foreign countries to repatriate their nationals held in northeast Syria.

But most western countries have refused to repatriate their nationals from the camp.

Calls by the Kurdish administration for the formation of international tribunals for the fighters have also been overlooked.

MGHIRA, Tunisia —  “When I see plastic, I see money,” says Tarek Masmoudi, owner of one of the few recycling companies in Tunisia, where a waste crisis is threatening widespread social unrest.

Recycling is almost non-existent in the North African country, which produces 2.6 million tonnes of waste each year.

Some 85 per cent of that ends up in landfills, while much of the rest winds up in informal dumps, says Tunisian waste management expert Walim Merdaci.

But with many facilities close to overflowing and neighbouring communities up in arms, the crisis is already stoking tensions.

In November, a man died as security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters demanding the closure of a stinking landfill they say has spread deadly diseases and health problems to their town of Agareb, near second city Sfax.

That could be a worrying sign of things to come as, according to expert Wassim Chaabane, most of the country’s 11 official dumping grounds are due to close by the end of 2022.

That has authorities scrambling to find new sites.

In the capital Tunis, home to about 2.7 million people, the situation is particularly urgent.

The Bordj Chakir dump, Tunisia’s biggest, receives more than 3,000 tonnes of rubbish a day and is close to overflowing.

From waste to wealth 

But where others see a crisis, Masmoudi sees an opportunity.

Every day, a steady stream of minivans and small trucks bring to his facility in Mghira, near Tunis, bales of plastic waste to be weighed, sorted and cut into fine chips for industrial use.

Much is collected by hand from the streets and bins of the capital by “barbechas”, informal waste pickers.

Masmoudi’s firm African Recycling deals with 6,000 tonnes of waste a year.

The 42-year-old directly employs around 60 people, many of them women, and indirectly provides work to roughly 200 — no small achievement in a country suffering 18 per cent unemployment.

Between four and 7 per cent of Tunisia’s waste is recycled, according to official figures.

But Masmoudi, standing by his sleek white four-wheel-drive, said the waste market was growing fast.

“Recycling is a sector where a lot remains to be done, but which could create jobs and wealth in Tunisia.”

The situation is similar in neighbouring Algeria, where experts say as much as 60 per cent of household waste from the country’s 43 million population goes to unregulated dumps.

Samira Hamidi, a member of Algeria’s semi-independent advisory body CNESE, says “less than 7 per cent of waste is recycled”.

Just 5,000 people are employed in Algeria’s recycling sector, according to official figures.

In Tunisia, after a decade of political paralysis since a 2011 revolution, Masmoudi says the waste management system reflects a lack of strategy and vision.

Firms like his are blocked from collecting trash directly, as “municipalities own the rubbish”, he says.

“The state pays 150-200 dinars [$52-$70] per tonne of waste that goes to landfill. We’re paying money to bury something that’s worth a fortune.”

But implementing a system of sorting could take years, according to Chaabane.

“Tunisia’s waste management system is hopeless at all levels, but especially when it comes to collection.”

The national waste management agency recently admitted that it lacks the resources.

Running out of time 

Merdaci, the other expert, says Tunisian authorities want to bring in a combination of mechanical and biological methods to treat waste, compacting and composting it whilst collecting methane, gas which can be used as fuel.

But initial projects will take two years to get off the ground.

“Time is running out,” he says.

Merdaci called for “a tax to pay for waste management and to make everyone pay for what they produce” as a means for municipalities to deal with waste.

Each Tunisian produces on average 365 kilogrammes of waste per year, yet taxpayers are charged no more than 28 cents for its management.

Chaabane says urgent solutions are needed, and adds that incineration was “the best option for cities” if clean energy is used.

But that option would not come cheaply, with incinerators costing some $280 million each.

To Merdaci, the outlook is grim.

“We’ve had 10 years of political instability, a decade without any decisions, problems with those living near dumps, and a lack of money. Success is nil.”

VIENNA — Western powers on Friday reported some progress in talks to save the landmark Iran nuclear deal, but European diplomats warned that they were "rapidly reaching the end of the road".

In a blow to European mediators, Iran requested a new pause in the talks in Vienna, which aim to bring the United States back into the 2015 agreement and roll back nuclear activities. The Islamic republic stepped up its nuclear projects after the US withdrawal.

The talks had just resumed in late November after a five-month break following the election of a new hardline government in Iran.

"There has been some technical progress in the last 24 hours, but this only takes us back nearer to where the talks stood in June," Britain, France and Germany, known as E3, said in a statement.

"We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation."

Underlying Western concerns are fears that Iran will soon have made enough progress that the 2015 accord — under which it was promised economic relief in return for drastic curbs on its nuclear work — will be obsolete.

Enrique Mora, the EU official chairing the talks, called for a "sense of urgency" and for talks to resume before the end of the year.

"We are not talking anymore about months, we are talking about weeks," Mora said.

Limited progress 

Former US president Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018 and imposed sweeping sanctions including a unilateral US ban on Iran's oil sales, vowing to bring the US adversary to its knees.

President Joe Biden supports a return to the agreement negotiated by predecessor Barack Obama, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but has been frustrated by the pace of resurrection efforts.

"It's not going well in the sense that we do not yet have a pathway back into the JCPOA," Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said of the talks.

"We are paying the wages of the disastrous decision to leave the deal back in 2018," he said.

But Sullivan, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said recent days “have brought some progress at the bargaining table”.

Another US official said the latest round was “better than it might have been” and “worse than it should have been”.

The official called for a “very significant acceleration” and said the United States was ready to return before New Year’s.

“If it takes this much time to agree on a common agenda, imagine how much time it will take to resolve the issues on that agenda,” he said.

Russia, which along with China is also in the talks, said negotiators agreed to start from where they left off in June before Iran requested a break for its elections.

The latest round was “successful in a sense that it prepared sound basis for more intensive negotiations”, envoy Mikhail Ulyanov wrote on Twitter.

Tehran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri said there were “hard and intense negotiations” to agree on the “bases” for further talks which will take place “in the near future”.

‘Plan B?’ 

The Biden administration has said it is willing to lift sanctions but only if Iran returns to compliance.

Amid the deadlock, the United States has increasingly spoken of a “Plan B” of pressure if talks fail.

A group of former officials including Obama’s defence secretary Leon Panetta and retired general David Petraeus in a joint statement urged Biden to arrange high-profile military exercises or other actions to strike fear into Iran.

“Without convincing Iran it will suffer severe consequences if it stays on its current path, there is little reason to hope for the success of diplomacy,” they wrote, while also backing humanitarian assistance.

Earlier this year, Tehran also began restricting some inspection activities by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Tehran and the Vienna-based IAEA announced on Wednesday that they had reached agreement on replacing the cameras at the TESA nuclear complex in Karaj, west of Tehran, after they were damaged in a June attack Iran blames on Israel.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on Friday voiced concern that a camera memory unit remained missing from the complex.

“This is why we are asking them, ‘Where is it?’ I’m hopeful that they are going to come up with an answer because it is very strange that it disappears,” Grossi said.

“We have ways to try to reconcile the facts on the ground with what Iran is going to be telling us,” he added.

ISTANBUL — Turkey will send 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday at a major summit of the continent’s leaders, adding that the low vaccination rates there were a blot on humanity.

Ankara has invested heavily in developing trade and diplomatic ties with the world’s poorest continent during Erdogan’s rule as prime minister and then president since 2003.

Speaking to dozens of attending leaders and ministers, Erdogan said Turkey would ship 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa, where cases are rapidly rising and vaccination rates are low.

“We are aware of the global injustice in accessing the COVID-19 vaccine and Africa’s unjust treatment,” Erdogan said.

“It is disgraceful for humanity that only 6 per cent of Africa’s population has been vaccinated.”

Turkey is developing its own vaccine, known as Turkovac, which is in the process of receiving emergency use approval.

Following any authorisation, it will be shared with Africa, Erdogan said.

It was not immediately clear from his remarks whether Turkey would first send some doses of the internationally approved vaccines it was currently using, including those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.

“In order to contribute to the resolution of this issue, within our means, we plan to share 15 million vaccine doses in the period ahead,” he said.

Soaring infection rates 

The number of new infections in Africa has shot up by 57 per cent in the past week, according to AFP calculations based on official figures.

South Africa is the hardest-hit country, becoming one of the first in the world affected by the new Omicron variant, which is believed to be even more contagious than past coronavirus strains.

Erdogan said Turkey wanted to strengthen relations with Africa in a wide range of areas including health, defence, energy, agriculture and technology.

“The real potential between us goes far beyond the targets we have,” he said.

In a final declaration, Turkey and African countries agreed to strengthen cooperation in several fields, including health “through further health sector investments”.

“With the declaration we have accepted at this summit and the joint action plan, we agreed on a road map to deepen our relations,” Erdogan told a closing media event.

Focus on trade 

Trade between Turkey and Africa has grown in the past 20 years from $5.4 billion to $25.3 billion (4.8 billion euros to 22.5 billion euros) last year.

And in the first 11 months of 2021, it had reached $30 billion, Erdogan said.

Turkey has set an even higher target of trade volume for the future: $75 billion.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the third Turkish-African summit — by far the largest to date — was being attended by 16 African heads of state and 102 ministers, including 26 top diplomats.

Erdogan also held one-on-one meetings with African heads of state, including Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who have both expressed an interest in Turkey’s defence industry.

The next Turkey-Africa summit will be held in 2026 in an unspecified African country.

Erbil, Iraq — Twelve people including three foreigners died on Friday in flash floods which swept through northern Iraq after torrential rains in Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, an official said.

In a country dealing with severe drought, many were caught by surprise as powerful storm waters started surging into their homes in the city’s eastern suburbs before dawn.

Provincial governor Omid Khoshnaw said a 10-month-old baby, a Turk and two Filipino nationals were among the 12 people killed.

“The floods started at 4am (01:00 GMT) and there were women and children among the victims,” Khoshnaw told AFP.

Four members of the emergency services were injured when their vehicle was swept away.

Emergency services spokesperson Sarkawt Karach said one of the dead had been struck by lightning while the others had been drowned inside their homes.

He said there had been widespread damage and some families had been forced to abandon their homes.

Vehicles washed away 

In Erbil, an AFP reporter saw torrents of muddy water pouring down roads.

Buses, trucks and tanker trucks were washed away by the storm waters, with some flipped over or turned onto their side.

Khoshnaw called on residents to stay at home unless necessary, warning that further rain was expected with fears of more floods.

“The security forces are on alert, as are medical and emergency service teams and local councils around the region,” he said.

Iraq has been hit by a succession of extreme weather events.

It has endured blistering temperatures and repeated droughts in recent years, but has also experienced intense floods —- made worse when torrential rain falls on sun-baked earth.

Hard ground and vegetation loss means the earth does not absorb water as quickly, and when storms hit they can become flash floods.

Scientists say climate change amplifies extreme weather, including droughts as well as the potential for the increased intensity of rain storms.

Experts have warned that record low rainfall, compounded by climate change, are threatening social and economic disaster in war-scarred Iraq.

The effects of low rainfall have been exacerbated by falling water levels on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as a result of dam-building in neighbouring Turkey and Iran, Samah Hadid, of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), has said.

The severity of the drought has forced many farming families to leave their land and seek a living in urban areas.

In a study released Thursday, the NRC said half of the families living in drought-affected areas of Iraq need food aid.

That followed a warning in November from the World Bank which said Iraq could suffer a 20 per cent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.


CAIRO — A third of people in the 420-million-strong Arab world do not have enough to eat, the United Nations said on Thursday, highlighting that 69 million suffered from malnutrition last year.

In a report, the world body's Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO) said that between 2019 and 2020, the number of malnourished in the Arab world rose by 4.8 million people to 69 million, nearly 16 percent of the population.

"The increase in the levels of undernourishment has occurred across all income levels, in conflict-affected as well as non-conflict countries," the FAO said.

"In addition, nearly 141 million people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 -- an increase of more than 10 million people since 2019."

It said the Covid-19 pandemic "brought another major shock", with the number of undernourished people in the region increasing by 4.8 million compared with 2019.

Conflict-hit Somalia and Yemen remained the worst-affected countries last year, with nearly 60 per cent of Somalis going hungry and more than 45 per cent of Yemenis undernourished.

"Yemen had the highest prevalence of anaemia in 2020, affecting 61.5 per cent of women of reproductive age," it said.

The FAO said hunger has increased by 91.1 per cent in the Arab world over the past two decades.

"Rates of stunting [20.5 per cent] and overweight [10.7 per cent] among children under five years of age were high in 2020," the FAO noted.

It said adult obesity, especially in the richer Arab states, was also on the rise.

"The latest year estimate for the Arab region shows that 28.8 per cent of the adult population was obese, i.e. more than double the global average of 13.1 per cent.

"High-income countries exhibited the highest prevalence of adult obesity in the region whereas the low-income countries had the lowest levels."



BAGHDAD — Half of the families living in drought-affected areas of Iraq need humanitarian food aid, the Norwegian Refugee Council(NRC) said in a study released on Thursday.

Experts have warned that record low rainfall, compounded by climate change, are threatening social and economic disaster in war-scarred Iraq.

The NRC said its research shows that "one in two families in drought-affected regions require food assistance because of drought, while one in five do not have sufficient food for everyone in the family".

The NGO based its study on interviews in 2,806 homes across seven provinces, among them Anbar in the west, Basra in the south and the north's Nineveh.

These three are traditionally considered to be the breadbasket of Iraq but have been hit hard by the crisis.

The United Nations says about one-third of Iraq's population lives in poverty, despite the country's oil wealth.

The effects of low rainfall have been exacerbated as the levels of the country's two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, drop because of upstream dams in neighbouring Iran and Turkey.

"Communities across Iraq have faced damaging losses to their crops, livestock, and income. Children are eating less, and farmers and displaced populations are hit hardest," the report said, adding young people are particularly vulnerable.

The NRC said 37 per cent of farmers growing wheat and 30 per cent of those planting barley saw their expected crop yields fall by at least 90 per cent.

"Families are telling us they have to borrow money to eat amid soaring prices and dwindling savings," said Maithree Abeyrathna, NRC's Head of Programmes in Iraq.

"They say their only source of living is vanishing in front of their eyes. Their lands are drying up and there is nothing they can do about it."

Last month, the World Bank warned that Iraq could suffer a 20-per cent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

"The outlook for 2022 is worrying, with continued water shortages and drought conditions likely to devastate the coming farming season, the NRC study said.