Chad floods killed 503, 1.7 million affected: UN/node/2572280
Chad floods killed 503, 1.7 million affected: UN
1 / 2
This photo posted by the Medicins Sans Frontieres on social media shows an aerial view of Koukou Angarana, a town in Chad's southeastern region of Sila, after the devastating floods on August 9. (X: @MSF_EastAfrica)
2 / 2
Relief agencies distribute humanitarian aid to flood-displaced communities at the Milezi site in N'Djamena, Chad. (OCHA photo)
Floods have also destroyed 212,111 houses, damaged 357,832 hectares of crops and drowned 69,659 heads of cattle
Water minister says all provinces had been hit, urges that water from private wells be treated with chlorine before consumption
Updated 21 September 2024
N’DJAMENA: Severe flooding in Chad since July has claimed 503 lives and affected around 1.7 million since July, the United Nations said Saturday in its latest assessment of the disaster.
The floods have also destroyed 212,111 houses, flooded 357,832 hectares (885,000 acres) of fields and drowned 69,659 heads of cattle, said the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Chad.
All of the country’s provinces had been hit, Chad’s water and energy minister Marcelin Kanabe Passale told journalists Saturday morning, warning of more trouble to come.
“The waters of the Logone and Chari rivers have reached a critical height likely to cause obvious serious flooding in the coming days,” Passale said.
N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, is located where the Logone and Chari rivers flow into each other.
Passale recommended that all water from private wells be treated with chlorine before consumption.
A flood-monitoring committee had been set up to “assess the risks associated with the pollution of drinking water supplies and rising river levels,” he added.
The UN had already warned in early September of the impact of “torrential rains and severe flooding” in the wider region, particularly in Chad, calling for immediate action and funding to tackle climate change.
This summer has been the hottest ever recorded globally with a slew of record temperatures, heatwaves, drought and severe flooding.
UK must tackle racists and people who take law into their hands head on, says former Tory chancellor and author of ‘The Boy from Baghdad’ Nadhim Zahawi
In wide-ranging interview, Zahawi describes PM Starmer’s decision to remove Margaret Thatcher’s portrait from office as “vindictive” and “petty” behavior
Updated 22 September 2024
Arab News
DUBAI: Britain is still the most tolerant place on earth, but it must tackle head on both the scourge of racism in society and those who are intent upon taking the law into their own hands, former Conservative MP and minister Nadhim Zahawi said.
His remarks follow a summer of unrest in the UK, where a knife attack in the town of Southport that killed three children and injured 10 sparked nationwide riots, exploited by far-right fringe groups to whip up hatred against immigrants.
“We have to address the racists head-on,” said Zahawi, appearing on the first episode of the new season of the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking.”
“And I think it’s important that we send a very clear message that taking things into your own hands and going out and antagonizing, bullying, beating people just because of their background or color is completely unacceptable.
“And we have to deliver that message very, very clearly. It’s incumbent on the leadership, from the prime minister down, to do that.”
In his new memoir, “The Boy from Baghdad,” Zahawi chronicles his family’s escape from the regime of Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. (Arab News photo)
Zahawi, who was a Conservative member of parliament for Stratford-upon-Avon from 2010 to 2024 and who served as chancellor of the exchequer in Boris Johnson’s cabinet, also spoke of his own struggles growing up in the UK as an Iraqi refugee.
In his new memoir, “The Boy from Baghdad,” Zahawi chronicles his family’s escape from the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in the late 1970s, the struggles of building a new life in Britain, and the onset of serious financial difficulties.
“I talk about my sort of impostor feeling that just because I came from a privileged family background in Iraq, landing in the UK in 1978-79, but not having the same financial struggles as, say, a refugee today that would land in the UK,” he said.
“We had different financial struggles much later on, which I address in the book, and pretty dire ones, including the bank taking away our home. But because of success and maybe because I don’t conform to the stereotype of what brown people should do in politics in the UK, that they should be socialist or they should be leftwing Labour.”
Indeed, Zahawi also had to contend with racial discrimination. Does he believe Britain has always had a racism problem?
A knife attack in the town of Southport that killed three children sparked riots nationwide. (AFP)
“In the 1980s, it was very different to today, including my own party,” he said. “I think the Conservative Party of the ’80s was a bit of a closed shop for people of my background, but I persevered.
“There are always going to be elements of racism. But I think, if you look at the evidence, the UK has dealt with it in a much better way than pretty much every other country around us in Europe.”
Because of his own experiences as a refugee who made his fortune and rose to the front bench of politics, it seems somewhat jarring that he would go on to support the Conservative government’s scheme to deport failed asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
“So, let me just unpack some of that,” said Zahawi.
“The net increase in migration into the UK was about 740,000 people last year. Clearly, our public services cannot cope with a city the size of Bath being built every year to be able to accommodate that level of migration.
“We’ve been promising, prime minister after prime minister, that we would bring down migration numbers. David Cameron said it would be tens of thousands. It has gone on one trajectory, and that’s up. And that has to be our priority, this government’s priority.”
Of particular concern to UK authorities — and especially to those who took part in the summer’s rioting — are the irregular migrants arriving in Britain on small boats, crossing the English Channel from northern France.
“Forty thousand are coming in illegally on these small boats,” said Zahawi. “Now, the problem with that is ... the unfairness of that, the perception that this is really bad, it’s unfair. Why should these people get to jump the queue to come into the UK? That poisons the well of goodwill with the British public. And so, Rwanda, in my view, was a good deterrent.”
King Charles paying tribute to the victims in Southport. (AFP)
Owing to repeated defeats in the UK’s highest courts over its human rights implications, the Rwanda scheme never got off the ground, and was immediately scrapped by the new Labour administration, which has pledged to tackle the smuggling gangs at the source.
If Europe wants to prevent hundreds of millions of migrants arriving on its doorstep, however, Zahawi says governments would do well to imitate the development agendas of the UAE, China, and others in helping countries in Africa and beyond to stabilize and prosper.
“In Libya and anything south of Libya, there are about half a billion people who will come under pressure and are capable of movement for political reasons, for environmental reasons, or economic reasons,” he said.
“Clearly, Europe cannot absorb half a billion people. So, we have to have some really serious work done upstream in those countries to stabilize them, to allow them to become prosperous.
“The UAE is doing a lot of that work. We should look at what they’re doing and see if we can partner with them, because the work they’re doing in Africa is second only to China and the investment China is making in Africa.”
In July, Zahawi’s party, under the leadership of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, suffered the worst election defeat in the party’s 190-year history, losing to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour by a landslide.
Of particular concern to UK authorities are the irregular migrants arriving in Britain on small boats. (AFP)
Despite pledging to put “country first, party second,” Sir Keir has already ruffled feathers among his Tory rivals after deciding to remove a portrait of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from his office at 10 Downing Street.
Although he denied moving the portrait for ideological or party political reasons, opponents have used the new PM’s choice of decor to accuse him of pettiness. “I just think this sort of, dare I say, vindictive type behavior,” said Zahawi. “I thought it’s petty, honestly.”
In early September, Zahawi faced a backlash of his own after posting a photograph on social media of a homeless person sleeping on the pavement in Mayfair, one of the British capital’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
Although Zahawi insists he was merely drawing attention to the high rates of rough sleeping, critics pointed out that homelessness had risen significantly under Conservative rule, and attacked Zahawi’s personal wealth.
“I just happened to be walking through Hertford Street, and I saw this poor, tragic human being lying on the pavement in the morning, and I wanted to highlight that this really is an issue. And it’s heartbreaking,” said Zahawi.
“But then you’ve got the Twitter pile-on from the lefties, who then attack your success, as if I’m somehow affronted by this just because it happens to be Mayfair. No.”
Zahawi appeared on the first episode of the new season of the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking.”
Zahawi says he is concerned the scale of rough sleeping on London’s streets, combined with rates of crime and antisocial behavior, leaves foreign visitors with a bad impression.
“The perception around the world, in the UAE, of their citizens going to England and getting mugged or hurt by some of these criminal gangs, at the moment is reaching a level that I think is deeply damaging to the image of the UK and to London,” he said.
Another recent controversy involved Zahawi’s stance on Iraq. Although he did not have a hand in the UK’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 — indeed, this was the work of a Labour government, and long predated Zahawi’s election to parliament — the Guardian newspaper criticized him for refusing to condemn the war in his new memoir.
Zahawi has since clarified that he supported the toppling of Saddam, but not the way the post-war situation was handled. Indeed, analysts are united in the view that these failures led directly to the emergence of Daesh.
“What Saddam did to the Kurds and the Shiite community in the south was abominable,” he said, referring to the regime’s successive bouts of repression.
“It was murderous. It was criminal. The Anfal program alone is responsible for 182,000 innocent souls being murdered, 4,000 Kurdish villages burnt to the ground. And so I think it’s only right that the world helped these unfortunate souls, these communities, depose such an evil tyrant.
“Post war, I think actually we really made a terrible error of judgment. And I would very easily explain to those interested that I think Tony Blair should have been much more robust to our most important ally, the US, by saying, look, show me the plan.”
Britain is still the most tolerant place on earth, Zahawi told Arab News. (AFP)
He highlighted the de-Baathification campaign and the disbanding of the Iraqi army as particularly grave errors that sparked the extremist insurgency that followed.
“You send home 700,000 men with no hope of a job, no way to put food on the table, and a gun in their pocket. What do you think is going to happen? The end is Daesh. That was a terrible, terrible decision,” he said.
“It’s right to be able to almost disaggregate those two things and say, actually, the removal of an evil dictator was right. But we never really planned for the day after properly. And we have to take part of that responsibility in the UK.”
Returning to domestic affairs, Zahawi says he is concerned about the prospect of growth in the UK economy unless the tax burden can be reduced, inflation brought under control, and the flight of wealthy individuals abroad can be stemmed.
“If you really care about the British economy, why are you exporting talent? Second only to China in losing millionaires,” he said.
“Now, I know wealth is not the only proxy, as I said, to talent. But it’s a pretty good proxy. And we’re only second to China in losing people to Abu Dhabi and Dubai and elsewhere around the world. And we’re importing low-skilled labor.”
Having stood down ahead of the last general election, Zahawi is now free to return to his business ventures. One new acquisition he is said to be keen on is The Daily Telegraph — one of the Western world’s oldest conservative-leaning publications.
“It would be an honor and a privilege to lead a great newspaper like The Daily Telegraph and it is one of our great products,” he said.
Zahawi was a Conservative member of parliament for Stratford-upon-Avon from 2010 to 2024 and served as chancellor of the exchequer in Boris Johnson’s cabinet. (AFP)
The sale has met with controversy, however, after a UAE-backed bid to buy the paper was effectively blocked when the UK government published proposed laws banning foreign states or government officials from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets.
Although he remains in the running to buy the paper, Zahawi feels the country was sending out the wrong signal. “The UK should always be open for business,” he said.
“The way you protect particular sectors of the economy, if they require protection, whether it’s nuclear or media, is through regulation, good regulation, not legislation.”
UN holds ‘Summit of the Future’ to tackle global crises
Proposed “Pact for the Future” outlines 56 “actions”, including commitments to multilateralism, upholding the UN Charter and peacekeeping
It also calls for reforms to international financial institutions and the UN Security Council, and renewed efforts to combat climate change, promote disarmament, and guide the development of artificial intelligence
Updated 5 min 28 sec ago
AFP
NEW YORK CITY: Global leaders are gathering in New York on Sunday for a “Summit of the Future” aimed at addressing 21st-century challenges ranging from conflict to climate, amid skepticism over whether the final pact will meet its lofty goals.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres first proposed the meeting in 2021, billing it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to reshape human history by rekindling international cooperation.
As an opening act for the annual high-level week of the UN General Assembly, which begins Tuesday, dozens of heads of state and government are expected to adopt a “Pact for the Future” on Sunday.
But after intense last-minute negotiations, Guterres expressed some frustration, urging nations to show “vision” and “courage,” and calling for “maximum ambition” to strengthen international institutions that struggle to respond effectively to today’s threats.
In the latest version of the text that will be submitted for adoption, leaders pledge to bolster the multilateral system to “keep pace with a changing world” and to “protect the needs and interests of current and future generations” facing “persistent crisis.”
“We believe there is a path to a brighter future for all of humanity,” the document says.
Spanning nearly 30 pages, the pact outlines 56 “actions,” including commitments to multilateralism, upholding the UN Charter and peacekeeping.
It also calls for reforms to international financial institutions and the UN Security Council, along with renewed efforts to combat climate change, promote disarmament, and guide the development of artificial intelligence.
(L-R) Bryant Wood, Kat Graham, Stan O. Smith, Kunal Sood and Poonacha Machaiah attend We The Planet UNGA 100 Disruptors event at United Nations on September 21, 2024 in New York City. (Getty Images via AFP)
Even though there are some “good ideas,” the text “is not the sort of revolutionary document reforming the whole of multilateralism that Antonio Guterres had originally called for,” Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
The sentiment is widely shared among diplomats, many of whom express frustration when discussing the ambition and impact of the text, describing it as “lukewarm,” “the lowest common denominator,” and “disappointing.”
“Ideally, you would hope for new ideas, fresh ideas. You know, 2.0 and then some. But when you have 200 countries that all have to agree, you end up with a Christmas tree of everything,” said one diplomat.
After intense negotiations in recent days, Russia still has objections to the final version of the text published on Saturday, a diplomatic source told AFP. While the pact is expected to be adopted, its approval isn’t guaranteed.
The fight against global warming was one of the sticking points in the negotiations, with references to the “transition” away from fossil fuels having disappeared from the draft text weeks ago, before being re-inserted.
Despite the criticism, it is still “an opportunity to affirm our collective commitment to multilateralism, even in the difficult current geopolitical context,” one Western diplomat said, emphasizing the need to rebuild trust between the Global North and South.
Developing countries have been particularly vocal in demanding concrete commitments on the reform of international financial institutions, aiming to secure easier access to preferential financing, especially in light of the impacts of climate change.
The text does indeed include “important commitments on economic justice and reforming the international financial architecture,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) commented, while also praising “the centrality of human rights.”
However, world leaders “still need to demonstrate that they are willing to act to uphold human rights,” said Louis Charbonneau, HRW’s UN director.
Regardless of its content, the pact and its annexes — a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations — are non-binding, raising concerns about implementation, especially as some principles — such as the protection of civilians in conflict — are violated daily.
“Our next task is to breathe life into them, to turn words into action,” Guterres urged on Saturday.
Marxist politician Dissanayaka leads Sri Lanka’s presidential vote
Updated 47 min 6 sec ago
AFP
Marxist politician Dissanayaka leads Sri Lanka’s presidential vote
COLOMBO: Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s main Marxist politician took a comfortable lead Sunday in a keenly fought presidential election that has turned into a referendum on an unpopular IMF bailout.
Early results from Saturday’s vote strongly suggested that 55-year-old Anura Kumara Dissanayaka would become the first leftist commander-in-chief and head of state of the small but strategically placed island nation.
The election pits Dissanayaka against President Ranil Wickremesinghe and rival candidate Namal Rajapaksa, whose campaign conceded defeat early Sunday.
About 76 percent of the 17.1 million-person electorate turned out to vote, officials said, with final results expected later Sunday.
National People's Power (NPP) party's presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayaka (2R) leaves a polling station after casting his ballot during voting in Sri Lanka's presidential election in Colombo on September 21, 2024. (AFP)
Dissanayaka’s strong showing in the postal ballot, considered an accurate indication of the entire electorate, also boosted expectations that he would win.
Election officials said Dissanayaka had won 58 percent of postal votes, with about a third of ballots counted.
In previous polls, candidates who garnered more than 50 percent of the postal ballot have gone on to win the presidency.
Rajapaksa’s aides said Dissanayaka had won the vote.
“Anura Kumara Dissanayaka has won the election,” Rajapaksa’s campaign aide Milinda Rajapaksha said on Facebook, adding: “Namal Rajapaksa won politics.”
The 38-year-old scion of the once powerful Rajapaksa clan entered the fray as a dress rehearsal for the 2029 presidential poll, sources close to him told AFP.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, a close ally of Wickremesinghe, also said Dissanayaka had won.
“After a long and arduous campaign, the results of the election are now clear,” Sabry said on X.
“Though I heavily campaigned for President Ranil Wickremasinghe, the people of Sri Lanka have made their decision, and I fully respect their mandate for Anura Kumara Dissanayaka.”
There was no immediate reaction from Wickremesinghe, but he declared an eight-hour curfew despite the independent Election Commission describing Saturday’s vote as the most peaceful in the country’s electoral history.
Police said the curfew was “an additional measure to protect people.”
Earlier in the day, the government declared Monday would be a special public holiday.
Election officials seal a ballot box at the end of voting in Sri Lanka's presidential election at a polling station in Colombo on September 21, 2024. (AFP)
Wickremesinghe is seeking re-election to continue belt-tightening measures that have stabilized the economy and ended months of food, fuel and medicine shortages after Sri Lanka’s worst economic meltdown in 2022.
His two years in office restored calm to the streets after civil unrest spurred by the downturn saw thousands storm the compound of his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country as anger mounted.
“I’ve taken this country out of bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe, 75, said after casting his ballot.
But Wickremesinghe’s tax hikes and other measures, imposed under the terms of a $2.9-billion IMF bailout, have left millions struggling to make ends meet.
Dissanayaka’s once-marginal Marxist party led two failed uprisings in the 1970s and 1980s that left more than 80,000 people dead, and it won less than four percent of the vote in the most recent parliamentary elections, held in August 2020.
But Sri Lanka’s crisis has proven an opportunity for Dissanayaka, who has seen a surge of support based on his pledge to change the island’s “corrupt” political culture.
He said at a polling station he was confident of securing the top job.
“After the victory there should be no clashes, no violence,” he said. “Our country needs a new political culture.”
Fellow opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president assassinated in 1993 during the country’s decades-long civil war, was expected to be in second position.
Premadasa has vowed to fight endemic corruption. Both he and Dissanayaka have pledged to renegotiate the terms of the IMF rescue package.
Earlier in the day, political analyst Kusal Perera told AFP it was difficult to predict a winner from the three-way race — the first in the island’s history.
The government has banned the sale of liquor over the weekend and said no victory rallies or celebrations would be permitted until a week after the final results.
Economic issues dominated the eight-week campaign, with public anger widespread over the hardships endured since the peak of the crisis two years ago.
Official data showed that Sri Lanka’s poverty rate doubled to 25 percent between 2021 and 2022, adding more than 2.5 million people to those already living on less than $3.65 a day.
Experts warn that Sri Lanka’s economy is still vulnerable, with payments on the island’s $46 billion foreign debt yet to resume since a 2022 government default.
The IMF said reforms enacted by Wickremesinghe’s government were beginning to pay off, with growth slowly returning.
But the country was also warned that it was not out of the woods yet.
Israeli forces raid Al Jazeera West Bank office, order 45-day closure
Israel’s military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatari network of being “terrorist” allies of Hamas
Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
Updated 21 min 12 sec ago
AFP
DOHA: Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera said that Israeli forces raided its office in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order.
Israel’s government last week announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country, four months after banning the channel from operating inside Israel.
“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid Al-Omari, the network reported, citing the conversation which was broadcast live.
“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said, according to the footage, which showed heavily armed and masked troops entering the office.
The broadcaster said the soldiers did not provide a reason for the closure order.
Israel’s army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has had a long-running feud with Al Jazeera that has worsened since the Gaza war began following the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Israeli military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatari network of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas or its ally, Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
The media office of the Hamas-run government in Gaza condemned Sunday’s raid, saying in a statement it was a “resounding scandal and a blatant violation of press freedom.”
The Israeli parliament passed a law in early April allowing the banning of foreign media broadcasts deemed harmful to state security.
Based on this law, the Israeli government approved on May 5 the decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel and close its offices for a renewable 45-day period, which was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court last week.
The shutdown had not affected broadcasts from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera was still covering Israel’s war with Palestinian militants.
Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim said the network’s West Bank office closure “comes as no surprise” after the earlier ban on reporting from inside Israel.
“We’ve heard Israeli officials threatening to close down the bureau,” she said on the network.
“But we (had) not been expecting it to happen today.”
Bureau chief Omari said that “targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth.”
In May, the network condemned as “criminal” the ban on it operating over its coverage of the Gaza war.
“We condemn and denounce this criminal act by Israel that violates the human right to access information,” the channel said in a statement.
King Salman, crown prince congratulate Armenia and Belize on their independence celebrations
Updated 22 September 2024
Arab News
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday congratulated Armenia and Belize on their independence day celebrations.
In a cable, King Salman wished Armenian President Vahagn Garniki Khachaturyan “continued health and happiness,” and the government and people of Armenia “steady progress and prosperity.”
He also made a similar wish in another cable to Belize Governor-General Froyla Tzalam.
Crown Prince Mohammed, who is prime minister of Saudi Arabia, likewise sent similar well-wishes to the president of the Caucasian country and the ruler of Belize.
Belize, located on the eastern coast of Central America and formerly known as the British Honduras until 1973, gained independence from Britain on September 21, 1981.
Armenia, a nation of 2.78 million, declared independence from the former Soviet Union on September 23, 1991.
