Region

CAIRO — Ethiopia has started the second phase of filling the reservoir of its mega-dam on the upper Blue Nile, Egypt and Sudan said, raising tensions Tuesday ahead of an upcoming UN Security Council meeting on the divisive project.

Both Cairo and Khartoum said they had been notified by Addis Ababa that the second phase of filling had begun at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Egypt's irrigation ministry late Monday expressed its "firm rejection of this unilateral measure" and Sudan's foreign ministry on Tuesday followed suit, labelling the move a "risk and imminent threat".

In Addis Ababa, the offices of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Irrigation Minister Seleshi Bekele did not respond to AFP's requests for comment.

The huge dam, set to be Africa's largest hydroelectric project when completed, has sparked an almost decade-long diplomatic stand-off between Addis Ababa and downstream nations Egypt and Sudan.

Ethiopia says the project is essential to its development, but Cairo and Khartoum fear it could restrict their citizens' water access.

Both governments have been urging Addis Ababa to ink a binding deal over the filling and the dam's operations, and calling on the UN Security Council to take up the matter.

Thursday's Security Council meeting was requested by Tunisia on behalf of Egypt and Sudan, a diplomatic source told AFP.

But France's ambassador to the UN said last week that the council itself can do little apart from bringing all the sides together.

"We can open the door, invite the three countries at the table, bring them to express their concerns, encourage them to get back to the negotiations and find a solution," he told reporters.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in a note to the UN that negotiations are at an impasse, and accused Ethiopia of adopting “a policy of intransigence that undermined our collective endeavours to reach an agreement.”

Relations between Cairo and Addis Ababa have been icy over the past decade. Tensions have also risen between Ethiopia and Sudan as the Tigray conflict has sent refugees fleeing across the border into Sudan.

Shoukry and his Sudanese counterpart Mariam Al Mahdi met in New York ahead of the Security Council talks and reiterated their “firm rejection” of Ethiopia’s move, Cairo said.

Addis Ababa had previously announced it would proceed to the second stage of filling in July, with or without a deal.

Ethiopia argues that adding water to the reservoir, especially during the months of July and August which typically enjoy heavy rainfall, is a natural part of the construction process.

“Filling goes in tandem with the construction,” said a senior official at the water ministry. “If the rainfall is as you see it now in July, it must have begun.”

The Nile, which at some 5954 kilometres  is one of the longest rivers in the worl, is an essential source of water and electricity for a dozen East African countries.

Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97 per cent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat.

Sudan hopes the project will regulate annual flooding but fears its own dams would be harmed without agreement on the Ethiopian operation.

The 145 metre tall mega-dam, construction of which began in 2011, has a reservoir with a capacity of 74 billion cubic metres.

Filling began last year, with Ethiopia announcing in July 2020 it had hit its target of 4.9 billion cubic metres — enough to test the dam’s first two turbines, an important milestone on the way to producing energy.

The goal is to add 13.5 billion cubic metres of water this year.

Reaching that target would be a political boon for Ethiopia’s Abiy as he strains to end the brutal war in Tigray, said Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, a public policy expert at Addis Ababa University.

“This is a unifying factor for Ethiopians in the middle of so many ethnic conflicts you see here, and therefore it’s important for the country and the leadership of the country to complete the dam in accordance with the schedule,” Costantinos said.

Egypt and Sudan wanted a trilateral agreement on the dam’s operations to be reached before any filling began. But Ethiopia says it is impossible to postpone.

Last year, Sudan said the process had caused water shortages, including in the capital Khartoum — a claim Ethiopia disputed.

Costantinos dismissed the notion that further reservoir-filling would be harmful.

“I don’t think it will have an impact. If anything it will have a positive impact as it will prevent flooding in Sudan, and this water is going to be available to them. It is not going to be withheld permanently,” he said.

By Zeineb Boughzou
Agence France-Presse

MEDENINE, Tunisia — In the front row of a small classroom, three women, all different nationalities, avidly learn French in southern Tunisia’s stifling summer heat — grateful for support from an umbrella of charities.

Based in the city of Medenine, it’s a rare locally driven opportunity for migrants to better themselves and integrate, in a wider North Africa region that is often far from welcoming.

And despite Tunisia’s own biting economic crisis and the rampant poverty in its under-developed south, local associations have banded together to offer the less fortunate support.

Awa, from Ivory Coast, speaks good French, but wants to learn to read and write in the language.

“I never went to school,” she said, her baby on her knee. “If you cannot read or write, it is as if you live in the dark — you cannot do anything.”

Banished by her family for refusing to marry, she travelled to war-torn Libya in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, but was prevented from taking to the sea and detained.

“I was pregnant, and due to give birth,” Awa said, adding that she was told Tunisia “was welcoming because it is not in a state of war”.

That advice brought her to Medenine, where she attends a day centre run by the Organisation for the Support of Migrants, an initiative by eight Tunisian medical outfits that offers support to mainly female migrants.

“I was welcomed... I am very happy,” Awa added.

Fellow Ivorian Bintou has discovered an inner confidence thanks to sewing lessons offered at the day centre.

“I have already sewn beautiful dresses — it’s a job that fascinates me,” she said.

“It inspires me,” she added, noting that she’d wanted to be a tailor even before she left her home country.

Like Awa, Bintou arrived in Tunisia in July last year.

Both are tempted to stay, largely because, as Bintou puts it, “it is peaceful”, even if she sometimes suffers street harassment and racism.

‘Feel comfortable’ 

Over the last decade, the number of migrants of Sub-Saharan origin arriving in Tunisia has swelled substantially.

They range from foreign workers displaced from Libya —- a country mired in chaos since the 2011 fall of Muammar Qadhafi — to asylum seekers and new immigrants looking for work in Tunisia.

In the last six months alone, 1,000 people who embarked from Libya to Europe have been picked up in Mediterranean waters by Tunisian vessels and ended up in the country, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

The danger of that crossing was brought into sharp focus again this weekend, when over 60 migrants disappeared or died as two boats sank in less than 72 hours off Tunisia.

With the country mired in an economic crisis that leaves it unable to meet the needs of its own citizens, migrants are low on the list of political priorities.

Two reception centres managed by UN agencies were established in Medenine in 2014 and 2015, but were quickly overwhelmed.

These limitations prompted the Organisation for the Support of Migrants to form and kick into action.

“We felt that things were wrong — we saw migrants begging in the street,” explained Abdallah Said, a Tunisian of Chadian origin whose work as a civil servant in Medenine involves collaboration with the umbrella group.

The organisation advises day centre attendees on their options and provides them “with time to think about what they want to do” next, Said explained.

“That’s why they feel comfortable.”

Uphill battle 

The initiative also brings the migrants into contact with Tunisian women.

In the small classroom hosting the French class, Tunisian citizen Fatma hopes to learn French in order to join her brother in France.

The West African migrants help her develop her skills.

“I teach them Arabic and they teach us French,” she said.

The initiative has had some help from the authorities — Medenine municipality provided a building for it to use as its headquarters.

But the area is severely economically deprived, suffering an unemployment rate of nearly 20 per cent, and cannot do more, according to municipal mayor Moncef Ben Yemma.

“I don’t even have the funds to build roads,” he lamented.

While there is an inclination to help migrants at the local level, there is resistance at the national level.

Tunisia tolerates irregular migrants, but it is very difficult for such foreign African nationals to legitimise their immigration status.

And Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi has rejected calls by the European Union and others to establish reception centres.

“Tunisia will not be a land of asylum,” he declared in May this year.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett accused his opponents on Tuesday of harming national security as his coalition failed to extend a ban on citizenship for Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza.

The ban first enacted in 2003 during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, has been justified by supporters on security grounds — but critics derided it as discriminatory towards Israel’s Arab minority.

The ban has caused endless complications for Palestinians living across Israel and the territories it has occupied since 1967. Many of those affected live in occupied East Jerusalem, often with Israeli residency but not citizenship.

The failure to pass the ban’s extension in a parliament vote early Tuesday highlighted tensions within Bennett’s ideologically diverse eight-party coalition that spans his far-right Yamina Party to Raam, a conservative Islamist Arab faction.

It was also a success for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now the opposition leader after Bennett ousted him following 12 straight years as premier.

“The opposition deliberately took a direct strike at the state’s security, out of some sort of bitterness and frustration,” Bennett fumed. “They ultimately harmed the good of the country.”

‘Faultline’ 

In overnight talks, Bennett’s coalition had sought a deal for nearly all of its members to back the ban’s extension, including Jewish left-wingers and two Raam lawmakers.

In exchange, the government would have granted residency or citizenship rights to more than 1,500 Palestinians who have been living in Israel for many years. They represent a fraction of the total cases.

But that compromise failed when a member of Bennett’s hawkish Yamina Party, Amichai Chikli, voted with the opposition, tweeting later that the debate over the bill was “proof” that a government without a “clear Zionist majority” would be “problematic”.

His defection left parliament tied at 59 to 59 votes, meaning the measure would lapse later Tuesday.

Bennett had called for opposition right-wingers to support the measure, urging unity on national security grounds.

According to Israel’s N12 website, Netanyahu, the veteran politician dubbed Bibi, told members of his Likud Party “the importance of toppling the government is greater” than renewing the ban.

“This isn’t just a law. It’s a law that exposes the faultline in this government,” added Netanyahu, who has made no secret of his desire to unseat Bennett and reclaim the premiership.

Raam leader Mansour Abbas, the first Arab party chief to ever join an Israeli coalition, voted for the measure along with one of his three fellow party members.

He told army radio that the coalition needed to “take stock” after the setback.

Members of the Joint List, a bloc of parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel that did not join Bennett’s government, rejoiced at striking the law down.

Its lawmaker Ahmad Tibi, in an impassioned speech on the Knesset floor, called the ban an “order for breaking up Palestinian families”.

Bennett charged that “everyone who voted against the citizenship law, from Bibi to Tibi and up to Chikli, chose playing politics over the good of the citizens of Israel”.

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, also of Yamina, tweeted that the ban’s expiry could bring 15,000 Palestinian applications for Israeli citizenship.

‘Partial victory’ 

In a protest against the measure outside parliament on Monday, some recounted the hardships of seeking permits to join their spouses, or the risks of entering Israeli territory without permission.

Ali Meteb told AFP that his wife not having Israeli residency rights had confined his family to a “continuous prison”.

Lawmaker Ram Ben Barak of Yesh Atid, a former deputy director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service who voted to extend the ban, told army radio that, while the ban served security goals, it should be reexamined.

“It’s absolutely clear that not everyone who asks to be united with his family or to marry someone in Israel is automatically a terrorist,” said Barak.

Jaafar Farah, the head of the Mossawa Centre that campaigns for the rights of Arab Israelis, said the failure to renew the law marked “a partial victory” in an 18-year battle that is “not over,” condemning the family unification ban as “racist collective punishment”.

HASAKEH, Syria — Hundreds of women protested against so-called "honour killings" in northeast Syria on Tuesday after the latest murders of young women by relatives in the Kurdish-run region.

The demonstrators marched down a street in the city of Hasakeh, some wearing a white t-shirt marked "No to violence" in red letters.

"Stop killing women," read one sign. "There is no honour in murder," said another.

The protesters gathered outside the home of the latest victim, a 16-year-old girl who residents said was murdered on Monday by her father.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the man strangled his daughter, who had been raped by a relative more than a year ago.

“We condemn these crimes in the name of tradition or religion,” said protester Evin Bacho, a member of the Kurdish feminist group Kongra Star.

She said the gathering was “against any family that gives itself the right to deprive a woman of her freedom”.

Monday’s murder follows uproar over a video circulated online at the weekend that purportedly shows the killing of another young woman.

The observatory, a Britain-based war monitor with a wide network of sources inside Syria, said members of her tribe had shot her after she tried to run away with her lover.

Protester Intissar al-Hamadi demanded the perpetrators of such murders be held to account.

“No religion or morality allows this,” she said.

In the Kurdish zones of Syria, “honour crimes” and “violence and discrimination” against women are officially outlawed, as is polygamy, although it is permitted in Islam.

In Damascus last year, authorities scrapped part of a law that allowed those who had killed a female relative to invoke mitigating circumstances to cut their sentence.

Syria’s decade-long war has killed half-a-million people and displaced millions more, and also compounded violence against women.

Rural areas are still deeply conservative and tribal, often imposing severe restrictions on women’s freedom.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's caretaker premier Hassan Diab on Tuesday urged donors to "save" the country, despite the fact it has no formal government, as it struggles through a dire economic crisis.

Warning that Lebanon is "just days away from a social explosion", Diab urged the international community to "help save Lebanese from death and prevent Lebanon's demise".

He urged foreign donors to release financial aid even though the multi-confessional country has failed to form a new government in almost 11 months.

"Linking aid to Lebanon with government formation has started to threaten the lives of Lebanese," Diab told a Beirut meeting with foreign envoys.

Withholding funds, he argued, does "not affect the corrupt. Instead it is the Lebanese people who pay a heavy price", he said. "Save Lebanon before it's too late."

Lebanese are grappling with spiralling devaluation and painful shortages as the country plunges deeper into what the World Bank has called one of the world's worst economic crises since the 1850s.

The international community has pledged humanitarian aid but conditioned any financial assistance to the cash-strapped interim government on the formation of a new cabinet to launch reforms.

But despite international pressure, led by former colonial power France, the deeply divided political elite has been unable to agree on a cabinet line-up for almost 11 months.

Diab stepped down and has served as caretaker premier since the Beirut Port explosion of last August 4, when hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser blew up, killing more than 200 people and ravaging swathes of the capital.

The disaster overwhelmed Beirut hospitals amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In the months since, the economic crisis that started in the autumn of 2019, sparking mass street protests, has only deepened.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 per cent of its value to the dollar on the black market. Plunging foreign currency reserves have translated into long queues outside petrol stations and imported medicines running out.

"Lebanon is passing through a very dark tunnel, and the suffering has reached the point of tragedy," Diab said.

TUNIS — More than 60 migrants of sub-Saharan origin have been lost at sea off Tunisia since Saturday, after two Europe-bound vessels sank, local authorities and the Red Crescent have said.

Tunisia and neighbouring Libya are key departure points for migrants who attempt the dangerous crossing from the North African coast to Europe, particularly Italy.

So far this year more than 880 migrants have died trying to reach Europe from North Africa, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Since the start of the summer the number of crossings have increased as migrants take advantage of the good weather and calmer seas, but the numbers of those lost at sea has also risen.

The Tunisian coastguard retrieved the bodies of 21 migrants after their boat was shipwrecked on Sunday off the port city of Sfax, authorities said on Monday.

"Twenty-one bodies of migrants were recovered after their boat was shipwrecked on July 4, and 50 were rescued" off Sfax, National Guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli told AFP Monday.

He said the migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa, had been trying to reach Europe.

On Saturday, the Tunisian Red Crescent had reported that 43 migrants were missing when a boat carrying more than 120 sunk off the south-eastern coast in waters near Zarzis.

Tunisia's defence ministry said eighty-four were rescued from that stricken vessel, which the Red Crescent said had set off from Libya's coast.

The National Guard said on Monday four boatloads of migrants had sunk since June 26 after setting off from Sfax, with the bodies of 49 people recovered and 78 rescued.

'Fail to prioritise lives' 

The number of migrants departing Tunisia for European shores last year hit its highest level since 2011.

During the first quarter of 2021, more than half of those arriving in Italy from Tunisia were citizens from Sub-Saharan African countries, according to the Tunisian rights organisation FTDES.

The number of migrants attempting to cross from neighbouring Libya rocketed to 11,000 between January and April this year, according to UN refugee agency UNHCR.

The UNHCR says that “deteriorating” conditions of migrants in Libya and Tunisia are pushing many to risk the crossing.

The migrant rescue ship Ocean Viking has rescued 203 people, including 67 minors, in recent days, its owner SOS Mediterranee said Sunday.

The migrants came from Egypt, Gambia, Libya, South Sudan, Syria and Tunisia, the non-governmental organisation said in comments posted on Twitter.

A UN Human Rights Office report in late May urged Libya and the European Union to overhaul their search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

It found that existing policies “fail to prioritise the lives, safety and human rights” of people attempting to cross from Africa to Europe.

TEHRAN — Iran’s only nuclear power plant has been brought back online, its manager said early Monday, after two weeks off-grid amid a power shortage and rolling blackouts across the Islamic republic.

The Bushehr plant’s shutdown was initially blamed on a “technical fault” that required repairs followed by conflicting reports that it was a regular maintenance operation.

The plant going offline came as Tehran and world powers in Vienna talks attempt to revive a hobbled 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme that was torpedoed by the United States.

It returns to the grid as major cities across Iran including the capital Tehran are experiencing frequent blackouts blamed on high summertime demand exceeding production levels.

The “technical fault” that shut down the Bushehr plant “was fixed”, Mahmoud Jafari, who is also deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), told ISNA news agency around midnight.

That allowed the plant to be reconnected to the national power grid and resume production.

Jafari said power generation had resumed on Sunday, and urged Iranians to “help” the overburdened grid by minimising power consumption as high temperatures are forecast in the coming days.

The plant on Iran’s southern coast and its 1,000 megawatt (MW) reactor were built by Russia and officially handed over in September 2013 after years of delay.

Russian and Iranian firms started work on two additional 1,000MW reactors in 2016, with construction expected to take 10 years.

On June 20, the AEOI had blamed “a technical fault” for the shutdown and said it had given the energy ministry one day’s notice before going offline.

It said two days later that the issue was with the plant’s “power generator”, without explaining further.

But Iran’s foreign ministry at the time described the shutdown as “routine”, saying it was carried out “once or twice each year”.

Record power consumption 

Bushehr plant chief Jafari said in late March that Iran was having a difficult time obtaining supplies to run Bushehr because of US sanctions, and warned of an imminent shutdown “if no solution is found”.

Tehran is engaged in talks with world powers in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that gave Iran international sanctions relief in exchange for limiting its nuclear programme.

But hopes for rising prosperity were dashed in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran.

Trump’s successor Joe Biden favours rejoining the accord and his administration is indirectly involved in the Vienna talks to salvage the deal.

Bushehr going off-grid had raised concerns of worse blackouts after a string of power cuts in Iran blamed on heat, drought impacting hydro-electrical facilities, and surging electricity demand.

Iran introduced planned, rolling blackouts in May after Tehran and several other cities were hit by unannounced power cuts, sparking complaints from consumers and an apology from the energy minister.

A spokesman for Iran’s electricity company on Monday apologised for unplanned cuts the night before.

Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi said record consumption of 65,900MW had exceeded Iranian power plants’ 55,000MW output and a “looming heat wave” could exacerbate the situation, IRNA news agency reported.

Power cuts are not uncommon during Iran’s hot summers, when air-conditioning use spikes. Adding to the problem, the country’s hydropower capacity has been hit by low rainfall.

A government report in May said precipitation was down 34 per cent compared to the long-term average, and warned of reduced water supplies for the year.