No oil, no food: Damaged pipeline piles misery on South Sudan

The damaged pipeline was crucial for transporting South Sudan’s crude oil abroad, with petroleum exports traditionally accounting for about 90 percent of the impoverished country’s GDP. (REUTERS)
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Updated 09 July 2024
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No oil, no food: Damaged pipeline piles misery on South Sudan

  • The damaged pipeline was crucial for transporting South Sudan’s crude oil abroad, with petroleum exports traditionally accounting for about 90 percent of the impoverished country’s GDP

JUBA: At 75, Galiche Buwa has lived through civil wars, famine and natural disasters, but the South Sudanese widowed mother of four always managed to get by, thanks to her grocery business.
Now, however, even that standby is on shaky ground, as the oil-dependent nation’s economy reels from revenue losses following the rupture of a key pipeline in its war-torn neighbor Sudan in February.
The damaged pipeline was crucial for transporting South Sudan’s crude oil abroad, with petroleum exports traditionally accounting for about 90 percent of the impoverished country’s GDP.
The implications have been far-reaching, with inflation soaring as the value of the South Sudanese pound relative to the US dollar plunges on the black market, from 2,100 in March to 3,100 today.
The official rate slipped from around 1,100 in February to nearly 1,550 this month.
“Since the 1970s up to now I am still here, but these days we are suffering. Things are tough,” Buwa said as she glumly tended to her stall at the Konyo-Konyo market in the capital Juba.
“We are unable to buy stock, things are expensive... and prices keep rising every day,” she said, compelling her to purchase supplies on credit.
As wholesale costs shoot up, retail prices follow — a mug of maize sold by Buwa was worth 800 South Sudanese pounds in March, compared to 2,000 today, she said.
Teddy Aweye, a 28-year-old mother of two, said she was struggling to put food on the table, forcing her family to eat just one meal a day.
“You go to the market today, you get a price, and tomorrow you go back and you get a different price... I had to return home without buying anything,” Aweye told AFP.
“Life is really very difficult.”

It is a common refrain across Juba’s biggest market, where several traders told AFP they were racking up losses every day.
Abdulwahab Okwaki, a 61-year-old butcher, said his business was in crisis.
“A customer who used to (buy) one kilo is now taking half a kilo, and the one taking half a kilo now takes a quarter... and the one who was taking a quarter is not coming anymore,” he said.
The father of eight often loses money when he is unable to sell meat before it goes bad.
Many of his fellow butchers have simply quit, unable to make ends meet, he said.
Higher-end businesses have also taken a hit.
Harriet Gune, a 27-year-old entrepreneur, said her fashion boutique was losing customers.
“The more you increase prices for the items in the shop, the more you scare away clients,” she told AFP.
A pair of jeans that used to cost 25,000 South Sudanese pounds in March now sells for 35,000, she said, adding that she needed to raise prices “to be able to get enough money to order new stock.”

Even government officials are feeling the pinch.
In May, Finance Minister Awow Daniel Chuang told parliament that the government would struggle to pay salaries to lawmakers, military, police, civil servants and other officials because of a shortfall in revenues.
He said the country was losing about 70 percent of its oil revenues because of the pipeline rupture, which has affected exports of Nile blend crude and Dar blend crude.
“The production is only from Blocks 12, 14, and 58, which means there is only around 30 to 35 percent of the oil that is flowing,” he said.
South Sudan was in crisis even before the pipeline shutdown sent shock waves through its economy, with fears that long-anticipated elections, currently scheduled for December, will be delayed.
In addition to rampant corruption draining its coffers — with the ruling elite routinely accused of plunder — the country is very vulnerable to currency shocks, because it imports nearly everything, including agricultural produce.
The fighting in Sudan between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023 has only exacerbated the situation, analysts say.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee — including over 700,000 to South Sudan — and pushed Sudan to the brink of famine.
Economist and government adviser Abraham Maliet Mamer told AFP that South Sudan, which declared independence from Sudan in 2011, needed to plan ahead to secure its future.
“Our country is suffering. We have less money, we have fewer services, and our security is a problem,” he said, urging the government to build refineries and pipelines through other nations.
“Sudan will never be the same again. Until we develop alternatives... we will be having issues,” he warned.


More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement

Updated 4 sec ago
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More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement

  • They were among around 3,000 who people were involved in a recent mass attempt to reach Spanish territoryI
  • In August alone, authorities reportedly blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla

RABAT: More than 150 people have appeared in a Moroccan court for alleged incitement of illegal migration, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after a failed mass attempt to reach Spanish territory.
On Sunday, Moroccan police, who fired tear gas, pushed back hundreds of people who headed toward the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, an AFP photographer said, after social media posts encouraged crossing attempts.
“In the framework of the struggle against calls for clandestine immigration, 152 people appeared before a judge,” government spokesman Mustapha Baitas told a press conference.
He said a total of around 3,000 people had tried to illegally enter Ceuta after calls on social media, but all the crossing attempts failed.
A police source previously told AFP that 60 people were arrested between Monday and Wednesday last week for “fabricating and disseminating false information on social media” that encouraged “the organization of collective illegal immigration operations.”
Ceuta and its sister territory of Melilla, wedged on the North African kingdom’s Mediterranean coast, have long been a magnet for irregular migrants, being the only European Union territories on the African continent.
Those heading on Sunday toward the village of Fnideq, which abuts Ceuta, included Moroccans and migrants from other parts of Africa, including some minors, the AFP photographer said.
According to official statistic, one in four Moroccan young people aged 15-24 is neither in the job market, nor in education or training.
The Moroccan interior ministry has said that in August alone, authorities blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla.
In June, 2022, at least 23 people died when around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier at Melilla attempting to cross.
The main route out of Morocco for irregular migrants hoping to reach Spain remains by sea.
More than 22,300 migrant arrivals were registered this year by August 15 in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a 126 percent increase from 2023.
 


Mission specialist for Titan sub owner tells Coast Guard goal was to ‘make dreams come true’

Updated 19 September 2024
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Mission specialist for Titan sub owner tells Coast Guard goal was to ‘make dreams come true’

  • Five people were killed last year when Titan submersible imploded last year enroute to Titanic wreck
  • The deadly accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration

A mission specialist for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year told the US Coast Guard on Thursday that the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.”

Renata Rojas was the latest person to testify who was connected to Titan owner OceanGate. An investigatory panel had previously listened to two days of testimony that raised questions about the company’s operations before the doomed mission. OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was among five people who died when the submersible imploded en route to the site of the Titanic wreck in June 2023.

Rojas’ testimony struck a different tone than some of the earlier witnesses, who described the company as troubled from the top down and focused more on profit than science or safety.

“I was learning a lot and working with amazing people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”

Rojas also said she felt the company was sufficiently transparent during the run-up to the Titanic dive. Her testimony was emotional at times, with the Coast Guard panel proposing a brief break at one point so she could collect herself.

Rojas is a member of the Explorers Club, which lost members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet in the Titan implosion. The club described Rush as “a friend of The Explorers Club” after the implosion.

“I knew what I was doing was very risky. I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation,” Rojas said in testimony Thursday.

Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began on Sept. 16 and some of the testimony has focused on problems the company had prior to the fatal 2023 dive.

During the hearing, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money.

“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”

Also expected to testify on Thursday is former OceanGate scientific director Steven Ross. The hearing is expected to run through Friday with more witnesses still to come and resume next week.

Lochridge and other witnesses have painted a picture of a company led by people who were impatient to get the unconventionally designed craft into the water. The deadly accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.

During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual recreation presented earlier in the hearing.

When the submersible was reported missing, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Four days later, wreckage of the Titan was found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said.

No one on board survived. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were the other two people killed in the implosion.

OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.


UK urged to scrap ‘racist’ visa route

Updated 19 September 2024
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UK urged to scrap ‘racist’ visa route

  • Long and expensive visa route for immigrants has been labeled ‘racist’ after analysis showed most applicants who feel forced to go through it are people of color
  • Analysis of Home Office data showed that all but one country in the top 10 nationalities who felt forced to use the route were those with predominantly non-white populations

LONDON: The UK has been urged to scrap a 10-year visa route and cap all routes to settlement in the country at five years.

The long and expensive visa route for immigrants has been labeled “racist” after analysis showed most applicants who feel forced to go through it are people of color, according to a report in The Guardian.

The 10-year route to a visa is used by hundreds of thousands of people who are not eligible for other immigration schemes because of a lack of income or professional qualifications. Many work in low-paid jobs, such as cleaning or care work. Other common routes to settlement in the UK take five years.

According to freedom of information data obtained by the charity Ramfel, there are 218,110 people on the 10-year route.

Analysis of Home Office data showed that all but one country in the top 10 nationalities who felt forced to use the route were those with predominantly non-white populations. The top five were Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Ghana and Bangladesh. Overall, 86 percent of people using the route were from Asian or African countries, while 6 percent were from Europe.

People seeking to gain a visa via the 10-year route must renew their leave to remain with the Home Office every 30 months, meaning four renewals. The fee for each renewal is £3,850 ($5,095). The Home Office can grant a fee waiver but many requests are refused.

According to a 2023 report on the 10-year route by the legal advice and support service Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, the think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research and the charity Praxis, the most common way of covering the fees was to borrow money, with many people remaining in debt afterward and struggling to pay for basic living costs.

A GMIAU spokesperson said: “These numbers confirm what people on the 10-year route already know: It is a racist policy. People are being driven into debt, forced to choose between paying thousands of pounds in visa fees to keep their legal status and keeping their families fed and warm.

“Ten years is far too long for anyone to wait to settle. The route must be scrapped. A good place to start would be to cap all routes to settlement at five years.”

Nick Beales, of Ramfel, said: “The 10-year route is an enduring legacy of the hostile environment. Like many other Conservative policies from this period, the racist intent is clear, with African and South Asian nationals far more likely to be placed on this arduous and often brutal route toward securing permanent immigration status.”


New hope in Rohingya camps as Bangladesh’s Nobel-winning leader pledges support

Updated 19 September 2024
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New hope in Rohingya camps as Bangladesh’s Nobel-winning leader pledges support

COX’S BAZAR: Mohammad Jamal heard about Dr. Muhammad Yunus long before the economist became the head of Bangladesh’s new government last month. Like many other Rohingya refugees, he is now pinning his hopes on the Nobel prizewinner changing his life.

An internationally renowned microfinance pioneer who in 2006 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, Yunus was appointed to lead Bangladesh’s interim administration following the ousting of veteran prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

With strong ties to the international community, donors and Western governments, he has promised reforms and also support to the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees that Bangladesh is hosting.

“We have heard of Dr. Yunus earlier many times. He raised his voice for our wellbeing in different international media earlier also. Since he is a Nobel laureate, people know him across the world as well (as) in Bangladesh. He is a very good person,” said Jamal, a 27-year-old living in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.

A coastal district in Bangladesh’s east, Cox’s Bazar became the world’s largest refugee settlement with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing death in neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.

Referred to as ethnic cleansing and genocide by various UN agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups and governments, the global outrage over the violence against the Rohingya initially brought robust aid to Bangladesh to help it support them, but it has rapidly declined over the years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Food Programme last year even resorted to reducing the value of its food assistance to those living in Cox’s Bazar camps.

As Yunus has been credited with lifting millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty through his microlending programs, the Rohingya believe he will find a way to help them, too.

“Refugee life is not a dignified one. For everything, we need to ask or depend on aid. If we could be provided with some livelihood training and then informal working opportunities, it would make us self-reliant to some extent,” said Amena Begum, a 38-year-old mother of three.

“I heard that he spent years of his life for the well-being of the rural people, especially for empowering the women. So, I hope that he will take some initiatives for changing the fate of the Rohingya women also.”

In his first major government policy address in late August, Yunus pledged that his government “will continue to support the million-plus Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh” and that it needs the “sustained efforts of the international community for Rohingya humanitarian operations and their eventual repatriation to their homeland, Myanmar, with safety, dignity and full rights.”

Despite multiple attempts from Bangladeshi authorities, a UN-backed repatriation and resettlement process for the Rohingya has failed to take off for the past few years, as in Myanmar they are denied the most basic rights.

Currently, it is also not possible as violence in their home Rakhine state has escalated in recent months amid fighting between Myanmar’s ruling junta and the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic militia.

With a new wave of those fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh, Yunus earlier this month called for a fast-tracked third-country resettlement of Rohingya — a plan that has been on the table for years but has so far resulted in insignificant response abroad.

But before that happens, refugees hope there are ways in which Yunus’s government will improve on the previous regime’s handling of the crisis.

With Bangladesh not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the Rohingya do not have access to formal education and cannot be legally employed to earn their livelihood.

“As a Nobel peace laureate, I hope he will stand beside the genocide survivors and oppressed Rohingyas, (that) he will provide us with better education opportunities until we get the chance of repatriation,” said Mohammad Rizwan, 26-year-old Rohingya volunteer and activist in Cox’s Bazar.

“As a Nobel laureate, he understands the importance of the rights for human beings and the agony of having a life without rights. That’s why we are expecting that, Dr. Yunus will do something new for us.”


India’s Modi to visit US for Quad meeting, UN summit

Updated 19 September 2024
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India’s Modi to visit US for Quad meeting, UN summit

NEW DELHI:Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part in the Quad Leaders’ Summit hosted by US President Joe Biden and attend the UN’s Summit of the Future in New York as part of his upcoming visit to America, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.

Modi’s three-day visit to the US will begin on Sept. 21 in Wilmington, Delaware — Biden’s hometown — for the Quad meeting comprising also Japan and Australia.

“The Quad has a very, very full and substantive agenda on this occasion,” India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told journalists at a press conference in New Delhi.

Misri added that the leaders would also cover health security, climate change, critical and emerging technologies, maritime security and counter-terrorism.

“This upcoming visit offers … the Quad leaders the opportunity to review progress achieved in the last one year and set the agenda for the next year.”

Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with Biden, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Australian PM Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the Quad summit.

This is the fourth leaders’ summit of the Quad — a four-state strategic security dialogue — which positions itself against China’s growing-assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.

Modi’s US trip will also see the 74-year-old premier attend a gathering organized by the Indian diaspora in Long Island, New York, as well as a business roundtable with leaders of US tech companies.

“The prime minister will also be attending a business roundtable with CEOs of leading US companies in the cutting-edge areas of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing and biotechnology,” Misri said, adding that details of attendees are still being finalized.

On his last day in the US, Modi will speak at the UN’s Summit of the Future, where world leaders are expected to address current and emerging global challenges.

India’s foreign ministry did not confirm that Modi would meet with former US President Donald Trump as a part of the visit, after the Republican presidential nominee announced it on Wednesday.

In 2019, Trump joined Modi at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston, Texas, that drew about 50,000 people and was billed as one of the largest receptions of a foreign leader in the US.

When Trump made his inaugural visit to India in February 2020, Modi hosted him in his home state of Gujarat, where the “Namaste Trump” welcome event was attended by around 100,000 people.