Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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well, there's this dimension--fundamental but forgotten too often:
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Seventy per cent of Palestinians in Gaza need international food aid to survive ? UN
Report, UN News, 19 September 2006
With the new school year beginning in just a few days, 70 per cent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip cannot feed themselves without assistance, a 30 per cent increase in the number in just over a year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today.
The Gaza economy is near total collapse and WFP, which this month increased the number of people to whom it is providing food by 25 per cent to 220,000 persons, will try to add more beneficiaries since the situation was deteriorating on a daily basis, spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told a news briefing in Geneva.
Overall, half of the Palestinians living in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank are unable to feed themselves without assistance, she added.
Earlier this year Israel stopped the transfer of Palestinian value added taxes (VAT) and other countries suspended contributions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) following the Hamas election victory in January.
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source: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5752.shtml
which is appalling and ongoing and forgotten.
it appears that the olmert government is heading for collapse.
it will, if polls are correct, be replaced by a rightwing government and wth that any hope of a more rational israeli "security" position will probably go out the window for the foreseeable future.
the brutalization of gaza will continue.
the americans--well the bush administration--is a big big loser in this. the only solace i can see is that the fact that the bush administration is already the richard bey show of international politics--the formation that defies ridicule by actually implementing policies beyond the imagination of a satirist--and thereby has so little credibility to loose that...well....ok i dont really see how any of this functions as solace, so never mind.
lebanon: this is an overview...
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Counting the Cost of Destruction in Lebanon
Saturday, 16 September, 2006 @ 5:12 AM
By Hardev Kaur
The damage inflicted on Lebanon is unbelievable. It is not just the damage to vital infrastructure but also the environment, the economy and the unseen dangers that threaten the health of its people.
The economy, which was growing between five and six per cent annually in part due to increasing tourist arrivals, has been severely impaired.
The humanitarian disaster is beyond comprehension. The cluster bombs used by Israel continue to take lives even after the fragile ceasefire came into force. Aid workers find it difficult to reach those who desperately need help as infrastructure, including roads and bridges, had been systematically destroyed by the Israeli bombardments.
The total cost of the devastation has yet to be calculated. Donors, meeting in Stockholm last month, pledged US$940 million for the reconstruction of Lebanon. But whether these funds will reach those affected and help restore some semblance of normalcy is yet to be seen.
By some accounts, it would cost more than US$2 trillion to repair the physical damage. But the cost of lives cannot be estimated. How does one put a dollar figure to an individual's life? The future of many children has been robbed, their schools destroyed and many lost their teachers in addition to their parents.
Then there is the environmental damage. The oil spills are washing up on the beaches in the Mediterranean. Lauren Walker, a columnist with a holiday home in Greece, says in an email: "I am in our house on a beach in Greece. Last night, I watched loggerhead turtles hatch 50 metres from our house ... magic! But the oil spill in Lebanon is turning into the biggest environmental disaster in the Mediterranean since Exxon (Exxon Valdez, which spilled in Prince William Sound, Alaska) in 1989.
"Conservative estimates are that it will cost US$50 million to clean up the Lebanese beaches and that most of the eastern Mediterranean will become affected," she says.
"The actual damage will take years to assess. The main problem in the Mediterranean this year is the rise in the number of jelly fish. Turtles usually eat them and environmentalists are saying that the changing balance of nature will see a continued increase in poisonous varieties."
The cost of restoration and cleaning up is mounting. Weeks after the cessation of hostilities, the oil spills are threatening coastal waters, not only of Lebanon and its more than 200 beaches, but also Syria and Turkey.
The economic effects of the spill go far beyond the immediate coastline.
More than 1.6 million tourists had been expected this year - bringing in US$4.4 billion, said Tourism Minister Joe Sarkis.
Tourism accounts for about 12 per cent of the economy. Seaside resorts and restaurants account for more than half of that. "Without the sea, it would reduce the attraction of Lebanon," Sarkis said. "It might take between one and two years to clean."
And over the longer term, unless the area is cleaned up and the cluster bombs systematically removed, there will always be questions as to whether Lebanon and its beaches are a safe holiday destination.
Back in Nicosia where she lives, Lauren adds: "As far as I know, the oil slick is now being tackled but it's a long hard slog." And she is right.
Not only has much of the infrastructure been destroyed, but the equipment needed to clean up the spills cannot be delivered to the affected areas fast enough. The longer it takes to clean up the oil spills, the greater the damage to the environment and economy.
Fishermen are having a hard time making ends meet. Thousands of families who depend on the sea for their primary food supply - fish - are also in dire straits.
Even if they survived the hostilities and escaped the cluster bombs, their fish supplies could be contaminated, leading to medical problems over the longer term.
Environmentalists say they are concerned by the possible use of depleted uranium, air pollution caused by fires and the destruction of houses and factories as well as the long term effects of war on rural and farming communities' interaction with their environment.
There is increasing evidence that the conflict will leave greater long-term legacies, in addition to the huge losses of lives and material damage.
And work to tackle this has not even started.
Picture: A layer of crude oil covers the Ramlet el-Beida public beach in Beirut. Lebanon is preparing legal action to sue Israel for damages over the huge oil spill caused by Israeli bombing of a power station during the recent conflict, the environment minister said ( AP)
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source: http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/20...ing_the_co.php
and this:
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A lasting legacy: The deadly impact of cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon
Report, OCHA, 19 September 2006
The sheer amount of unexploded ordnance that remains in south Lebanon, one of the poorest areas of the country, has implications for the future social and economic livelihood of the region. The quick destruction of remaining unexploded ordnance, particularly cluster bomb sub-munitions, is critical to restoring normalcy to the region and, ultimately, to a secure and lasting peace. It is vital that a social safety net be quickly established and that agricultural livelihoods are restored to prevent people from south Lebanon slipping deeper into poverty.
The Scale of the Problem
During the conflict, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) delivered up to 3,000 bombs, rockets and artillery rounds daily, climbing to 6,000 daily towards the war's end.
Hizbollah launched around 100 daily, climbing to 240 daily before the war's end.
Around 90 per cent of all cluster bombs and their sub-munitions were fired by the IDF into south Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the conflict.
UNMACC has identified 516 cluster bomb strike locations.
The failure rate of these cluster bomb sub-munitions is estimated by UNMACC to be between 30 and 40 per cent.
Based on reports by IDF soldiers, as many as 350,000 unexploded cluster sub-munitions are scattered throughout south Lebanon. This excludes the cluster bomb firings by conventional artillery or dropped by Israeli aircraft.
A single artillery shell disperses sub-munitions over an area as large as two football pitches. Air delivered cluster shells saturate an area twice that size.
It could take up to 30 months to destroy the majority of unexploded cluster sub-munitions.
Israel's passing over the coordinates of the cluster bomb strikes, as requested by the UN, would greatly accelerate the clearance effort.
The Victims
The density of cluster munitions in south Lebanon is higher than that witnessed in Kosovo and Iraq, with a greater concentration in built-up areas, according to UNMACC.
Unexploded cluster munitions have killed or wounded, on average, three people daily since 14 August.
At least 15 people have died and 83 others wounded since 14 August.
Most of these casualties have occurred as people checked their homes or fields.
Five civilians have been killed while herding or working their land and a further 16 have been injured.
One child has been killed and 23 others injured.
The impact of cluster munitions on agricultural livelihoods
The south is among the poorest regions in Lebanon and has also been the hardest hit by the conflict.
Agriculture is the main source of income in south Lebanon - depended on entirely by half the working population and providing 70 per cent of household incomes.
The direct damage to agriculture caused by the conflict is more than $70m, excluding the cost of indirect economic losses, which the Ministry of Agriculture says are considerably higher.
Farmers have not been able to irrigate or harvest their current crops and are unable to plant the winter crop. Next year's agriculture cycle will also be affected.
Farmers have been burning off their fields after demarking the bomblets in an attempt to destroy them.
At least 6 per cent (94km2) of land used to cultivate citrus fruits and bananas - the highest-value crops - and 10 per cent (74km2) of land for field crops are contaminated. UNMACC expects the percentage of agricultural land contaminated to rise as new cluster bomb strike locations are identified.
Unexploded ordnance - the fear it may be there -- keeps farmers out of their fields and unable to prune their trees in preparation for next year's harvest.
More than 7 per cent (35km2) grasslands, used for animal grazing, is contaminated.
The banks and streambeds of 173 streams and rivers in south Lebanon are contaminated putting shepherds and farmers at risk.
The Response to Cluster Bombs
By 27 September, UNMACC teams will be clearing munitions from farmers' fields.
The Lebanese army, UNIFIL, NGOs and UNMACC are disposing explosive ordnance and their capacity is increasing all the time.
Donors have supported the establishment of clearance capacity, and early indications are that sufficient funding should be available to sustain operations until December 2007.
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source: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5768.shtml
here is an analysis of the situation hezbollah finds itself working with now:
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Hezballah seeks to live with a new situation
Only a few weeks after the end of the hostilities, Hezballah has launched an organized offensive against the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora in order to have a new cabinet installed that would include Michel Aoun and other allies of the ?Party of God?. Many sources have published a detailed plan demonstrating how the Hezballah-Free Patriotic Movement axis will proceed in the near future to achieve this aim. Meanwhile all Hezballah officials have been firing verbal salvoes at the present cabinet at every opportunity, and the March 14 coalition has been hitting back. Where will this dangerous confrontation lead? Some parties are talking about a civil war. Is this possible now after 17 years of the peace process that began with the Taef Agreement? In his recent interview with the Al-Jazeera news channel, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the general secretary of Hezballah, said that there was no danger of a confrontation between Sunnites and Shiites, and spoke in favor of reconciling all their differences. He added that in his view, there was absolutely no question that a war or religious conflict could erupt again. But in a previous statement Nasrallah said his group has been practicing self-restraint against what he described as back-stabbing and provocation by some politicians.
There was no restraint in the way he castigated the visiting British prime minister, Tony Blair, or the way he accused the Saniora cabinet of failing to protect the Lebanese against the Israeli battering ram. He also claimed that guerrillas of the party were still south of the Litani, and indeed throughout the border zone.
In the political dictionary these statements might have two contradictory meanings. On the one hand, they could aim to anchor a strong position, making use of the military advantages Hezballah obtained during the war and benefiting from the support he got from some Lebanese groups during and after the war especially.
But on the other hand, this discourse could be seen as retaliation against the political and strategic losses of the party. Supporters of this point of view say that Hezballah never imagined the final scenario, in which an enlarged and strengthened UNIFIL would deploy throughout the border zone in a way that would drastically limit Hezballah?s scope of action. It miscalculated how far the international community would tighten its control on the party?s military activities along the border and deep inside the country. And the commitments the Saniora government has made to the international community go very much against the party?s interest in the long term.
For these reasons Hezballah decided to target the government in order to consolidate its presence in the decision-making that will affect the party?s future. Nasrallah chose the visit of Blair to pivot his attack against the government. He considered that ?the first mistake of [Saniora] and the political bloc that backs him is that, by inviting Blair, they behaved immorally and inhumanly towards the people who were killed, wounded or displaced?. He added there were attempts to ?humiliate, to harm, stab in the back and provoke?. But on the political levels the offense was not strongly justified because Blair was not the only foreign official to criticize Hezballah?s behavior. The French prime minister and his foreign minister, the German chancellor and many others condemned the abduction of the two soldiers and pushed for adoption of UN Resolution 1701, which has clipped the party?s wings. Many of these officials visited Beirut and no one raised any objection. Why Tony Blair? Because he is an easy target, not only because he is in political trouble at home, but also because he is George Bush?s closest foreign ally and is regarded by many as being hand in glove with Bush and his attempts to delay adoption of a cease-fire resolution. Hitting him is tantamount to hitting Bush.
Saniora decided not to reply to this political offensive because he considered that Hezballah was trying to draw him into a shouting match as part of its attempts to bring about a change of cabinet, or at least a reshuffle. Saniora intends to resist these attempts as long as he possibly can, relying on the time factor.
Time used to be a factor working in favor of Hezballah, but the situation has now changed. As time passes and the international force deploys and increasingly controls the borders and observes all activities in the zone, in cooperation with the Lebanese Army, Hezballah?s military effectiveness will gradually diminish. Its presence will be limited to civilians and the reinforced UNIFIL will continue seeking for tunnels and weapon stores.
Meanwhile the dialogue with Syria might reach a positive result in the future, especially since many influential countries are working to resume peace talks on all tracks. The Syrian issue can?t be separated from what is going on in Gaza and the attempts to form a new government including Hamas and Fateh in order to resume the dialogue with Israel.
Diplomats say that Syria expressed positive reactions regarding the resumption of the peace talks. These diplomats are expecting to see a clear change in the Syrian policy if the Palestinian track succeeds in bringing life to the peace process. In this line of ideas, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan pressed the leaders of Syria and Lebanon to quickly launch negotiations to establish diplomatic ties between their two countries. Annan told the Security Council he expected Damascus and Beirut to agree to ?the early initiation? of efforts to establish full relations after Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saniora told him they were ready to meet ?at any time? to start the process, which will lead to a balanced relationship between Lebanon and Syria.
Meanwhile, Hezballah will try to devise a new policy enabling it to accommodate itself to the results of the recent war and to find a new setting for its military power.
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source: http://www.mmorning.com/ArticleC.asp...0&CategoryID=2
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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