Saudi, UAE send relief aid to flood-stricken Iran

Yahoo – AFP, April 18, 2019

Iranians carry sandbags to build barricades against flood water in the city
of Hamidiyeh, Khuzestan province (AFP Photo/ATTA KENARE)

Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent 95 tons of humanitarian aid to their rival Iran as it reels from deadly floods, officials said Thursday, after Tehran complained US sanctions were obstructing relief.

"The Saudi Red Crescent, as part of a joint Saudi-UAE initiative to alleviate the suffering of Iranian citizens, has dispatched a relief plane to Tehran with 95 tons of humanitarian aid to support those affected by floods," the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The aid, which includes food and shelter material, was authorised by Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince, it added.

The Emirates Red Crescent was also involved in the relief operation, the UAE's official WAM news agency said.

At least 76 people have died in Iran after torrential rainfall, which has also caused billions of dollars worth of damage since March 19.

Iran's Red Crescent has repeatedly complained that US banking sanctions re-imposed last year make it impossible to receive donations from outside the country.

US President Donald Trump last year withdrew Washington from a multilateral agreement on Iran's nuclear programme, later re-imposing sanctions focusing on oil exports and financial transactions.

Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Shiite-dominated Iran have a longstanding rivalry based as much on geostrategic interests as religious differences.

Facing off across the Gulf, the two major oil producers have taken opposing sides for decades in conflicts across the Middle East.

Riyadh broke off diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2016 in protest at the torching of its diplomatic missions by Iranian protesters angry over its execution of a leading Shiite cleric.

Red tape delays Nepal quake disaster aid

Yahoo – AFP, May 3, 2015

Red tape delays Nepal quake disaster aid

Kathmandu (AFP) - The UN's humanitarian chief has said she is "extremely concerned" that Nepal's customs authorities are slowing the delivery of earthquake aid, as the death toll from the disaster crossed 7,000 on Sunday.

After the government ruled out finding more survivors buried in the ruins of the capital Kathmandu, the focus was shifting to delivering aid to families and others in far-flung areas of the devastated nation.

But the UN's head of humanitarian affairs Valerie Amos said she was worried the foreign aid pouring into Nepal in the wake of the impoverished country's deadliest earthquake in more than 80 years was being held up by red tape.

"I was extremely concerned to hear reports that customs was taking such a long time," Amos told AFP in Kathmandu on Saturday, saying she had asked Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to speed up customs clearance for aid materials.

"He has undertaken to ensure that happens, so I hope that from now we will see an improvement in those administrative issues."

A local official said on Sunday that police have found more than 50 bodies, including those of six foreigners, in the popular Langtang trekking region.

Another 100 foreign tourists are still feared to be missing in Langtang.

Uddav Prasad Bhattarai, chief officer of Rasuwa district that forms part of Langtang, said the bodies had been found in different places, including buried under debris, in recent days in the region hit by a quake-triggered avalanche.

"We have pulled out 51 bodies from the Langtang area so far, six of them are tourists. We estimate that about 100 foreigners might still be missing in the area," Bhattarai said.

"Our priority was to get the survivors out. We rescued over 350 people, about a half of them were tourists or guides," he told AFP in Rasuwa north of Kathmandu.

The 7.8-magnitude quake wreaked a trail of death and destruction when it erupted around midday eight days ago, reducing much of Kathmandu to rubble and even triggering a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest.

The death toll from the disaster has hit 7,040, according to the Emergency Operations Centre, with more than 14,000 injured. More than 100 were also killed in India and China.

Although multiple teams of rescuers from more than 20 countries have been using sniffer dogs and heat-seeking equipment to find survivors in the rubble, noone has been pulled out alive since Thursday evening.

"Rescue operations are still under way, but focus has shifted to providing relief," home ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told AFP on Sunday.

"Many far flung villages have been affected," he said, adding that there was still an "acute shortage" of tents for the hundreds of thousands left homeless.

Planes loaded with relief supplies from around the world were pouring into landlocked Nepal, but there have been numerous reports of many getting stuck at Kathmandu's small international airport, and even customs officials stopping trucks filled with aid from crossing into the country from neighbouring India.

The manager of Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport said very heavy planes were being barred from landing because of concerns about the condition of the single runway after the quake and a series of strong aftershocks.

"We have issued a notice saying that aircraft with a total weight exceeding 196 tonnes will not be allowed to land at Kathmandu airport," Birendra Prasad Shrestha told AFP.

"There are no visible cracks in the runway but there have been so many tremors recently that we have to take precautions - we don't know what's happening below the surface.

"This runway is the only lifeline for Kathmandu -- if it goes, everything goes."

Mountainous terrain

The exact scale of the disaster was still to emerge, with the mountainous terrain in the vast Himalayan nation complicating the relief effort.

With relief workers still to reach many areas, the Red Cross has warned of "total devastation" in far-flung areas, including in the hardest-hit Sindhupalchowk region, northeast of Kathmandu, where whole villages have been destroyed.

The latest UN's situation report says teams that have arrived in another devastated district, Gorkha, have discovered a "dire need for shelter, particularly tents and blankets".

"Access to some remote villages remains a key challenge as many landing zones are unsafe due to debris, altitude and current weather conditions," the report also says.

"Road access is limited. Some remote villages can only be accessed by helicopters."

In Kathmandu, tens of thousands of survivors have been living out in the open in the eight days since the quake, having either lost their homes or fearful that aftershocks could bring teetering buildings to the ground.

The UN says more than 160,000 homes have been destroyed and another 143,000 damaged.

"We are not living in this tent out of choice. We are here because we have nowhere to go," said Dhiraj Thakur who has been camped out since the quake in Tundikhel Maidan, an open area in the centre of the city.

The UN children's fund UNICEF has warned of a race against time to avert an outbreak of disease among the 1.7 million youngsters estimated to be living in the worst-hit areas, with monsoon rains just a few weeks away.

Funchu Tamang, 101, sits on a bed in a hospital in 

Nuwakot district on May 3, 2015 (AFP Photo)

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Aid agencies prepare 'massive' operations in quake-hit Nepal

Yahoo – AFP, Agnes Pedrero, 27 April 2015

A woman carries a child next to collapsed houses in Bhaktapur, on the 

outskirts of Kathmandu, on April 27, 2015 (AFP Photo/Prakash Mathema)

Humanitarian agencies said Monday they were preparing a large-scale aid operation to earthquake-ravaged Nepal, with more relief planes arriving in the coming hours.

"This will be a... massive operation," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme, told AFP.

Officials say more than 4,000 people are now known to have died, the overwhelming majority in Nepal -- making it the quake-prone Himalayan nation's deadliest disaster in more than 80 years.

Indian National Disaster Response

 Force (NDRF) personnel prepare to be

 flown to Nepal to provide assistance, at

 the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

 International Airport in Kolkata on April 27,

2015 (AFP Photo/Dibyangshu Sarkar)

WFP experts arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday to evaluate the situation, and the agency estimates shelter and medical equipment should be the first priority.

The World Health Organization said Monday it had already distributed medical supplies to cover the health needs of 80,000 people for three months in the country.

"An additional five emergency health kits are being flown in along with surgical kits and trauma bags to meet the immediate health needs. There is an urgent need to replenish medical stocks to support the emergency response efforts," said Poonam Khetrapal, WHO's regional director for Southeast Asia.

But with food also expected to quickly run scarce, WFP has "mobilised all of our food stocks in the region," Byrs said.

WFP is loading a plane with rations of high energy biscuits in Dubai, and Byrs said it would arrive in Nepal Tuesday.

They would be distributed to survivors in the country, taken by truck where possible, but due to the massive destruction, "the relief cargo may need to be airlifted," she added.

The UN refugee agency meanwhile said it was on Monday sending nearly 20,000 plastic sheets and some 8,000 solar lamps.

About half the stocks were already in place in Nepal and the rest were being flown from Dubai to Kathmandu on Monday afternoon on a cargo plane donated by the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, UNHCR said.

WFP experts are meanwhile poring over satellite images to estimate how many people have been affected by the disaster, Byrs said.

She said the worst-hit area was in "an agricultural zone that is home to between two and three million people."

Millions affected

WFP has been working in Nepal since 1964, and the agency had before the quake already been planning to assist some 500,000 people who do not have enough to eat.

An employee of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) fills packages with medical 

aid supplies to be send to earthquake-ravaged Nepal, in Merignac on April 27, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Jean-Pierre Muller)

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched an emergency appeal for 33.4 million Swiss francs (32 million euros, $35 million) to cope with the crisis and cater for around 75,000 people over the next 18 months.

But it said the number of people affected was far higher with between 4.6 and 6.6 million people thought to be living within a 100-kilometre radius of the epicentre.

"We already had 19,000 prepositioned kits" in Nepal, IFRC chief Elhadj As Sy told reporters in Geneva, adding that they included non-food items like kitchen sets and tarpaulin sheets.

"Charter flights have also been organised with relief items. We hope to get them landed as soon as possible," he said.

Simon Eccleshall, who heads disaster and crisis management at IFRC, said the "next 72 hours is critical" for people trapped under rubble, as rains could flood the debris.

The UN children's agency has meanwhile warned that the quake had left nearly one million youngsters in desperate need of assistance.

UNICEF cautioned that the thousands of children camping out in the open in the capital Kathmandu were particularly at risk of disease.

UNICEF said it was mobilising staff and sending two cargo flights with 120 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including medical and hospital supplies, tents and blankets.

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Dutch search and rescue team leads Kathmandu relief efforts - New

Rare aid enters rebel-held areas in Syria's Aleppo

Yahoo – AFP, 9 April 2014

Members of the Syrian Red Crescent and United Nations High Commissioner

 for Refugees (UNHCR) arrive at the rebel controlled Garage al-Hajz checkpoint in

Aleppo, Syria, on April 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Baraa Al-Halabi)

Members of the Syrian Red Crescent and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) arrive at the rebel controlled Garage al-Hajz checkpoint in Aleppo, Syria, on April 8, 2014

Damascus (AFP) - Syria's Red Crescent and the UN refugee agency have delivered aid to rebel-held areas of Aleppo city for the first time in 10 months, the Red Crescent said Wednesday.

"Yesterday at noon we and a UNHCR team were able to bring in aid from the Jisr al-Haj crossing," Red Crescent operations chief Khaled Erksoussi told AFP.

Members of the Syrian Red cross and Red

 Crescent cart aid to the rebel controlled Garage

 al-Hajz checkpoint in Aleppo, Syria, on 

April 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Baraa Al-Halabi)

The crossing lies between the government-held west of Aleppo and eastern parts of the city that rebels control.

"The operation took place after the implementation of a ceasefire between all the parties that was respected during the mission," said Erksoussi.

It was the first time aid had been brought in via the Jisr al-Haj crossing, with a delivery in June last year entering from the northeast of the city instead.

The goods, including food, blankets and health kits, were taken into the eastern neighbourhoods on carts pulled by workers because the crossing was to small to accomodate vehicles, said Erksoussi.

The items would be stored in warehouses in the eastern part of the city and distributed in stages.

The UN refugee agency called the mission a "rare and risky operation," adding its staff had observed a "dire humanitarian situation inside eastern Aleppo".

It described "an acute shortage of food, water, medicine and basic supplies".

"UNHCR last accessed the area in June, 2013 and no humanitarian aid has reached the population there since then," it added.

It said the aid had been delivered to the crossing in two trucks and then transported by 75 workers pulling carts "back and forth one and a half kilometres each way... in 270 trips."

Aleppo has been effectively divided into regime control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in the middle of 2012.

The government has made some advances on the outskirts of the eastern side of the city in a campaign that has included serial aid raids including with the use of explosive-packed barrel bombs.

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Dutch priest who saw Syria as home shot dead in Homs

Police investigation turns up Afghan death lists

DutchNews.nl, Wednesday 18 September 2013

A police investigation into an Afghan refugee has turned up lists with the names of up to 5,000 Afghan citizens who were tortured and killed by the Communist regime in the late 1970s, the NRC reports on Wednesday.

Amanullah Osman, who died last year, was denied political asylum for his role in the killings but was not deported because his life was in danger in his home land.

As the head of the interrogation department of the Afghan security service AGSA, Osman signed 27 known transport orders for political adversaries of the regime who were later executed.

The death lists have now been published on the public prosecutors’ website warcrimes.nl. They will also be sent to the Red Cross.

‘This information is extremely important for the families of the victims who for decades have lived in uncertainty about the fate of their family members and friends,' the paper quotes public prosecutor Thijs Berger as saying.

DPRK sends proposal to S. Korea for new reunion event of separated families

English.news.cn 2010-09-11

PYONGYANG, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has sent a proposal to South Korea for holding a new reunion event for families separated on the two sides of the Korean Peninsula, the KCNA news agency reported Saturday.

Millions of families were separated by the war

Jang Jae On, chairman of the Central Committee of the DPRK Red Cross Society made the proposal in a notice sent to Ryu Jong Ha, president of the South Korean Red Cross. He suggested that the two organizations hold a working contact to facilitate the reunion as early as possible.

Jang said the two sides had "a good precedent" in which they have arranged more than a dozen of reunions of the separated families on the occasion of the traditional harvest moon day, "alleviating their pain and deepening the kinship."

He proposed to hold the new reunion event at the DPRK's Mt. Kumgang resort on the coming harvest moon day, which falls on Sept. 22

In the notice, Jang also said he hopes that humanitarian cooperation between the two sides would gain new momentum from the reunion event.

The DPRK and South Korea have since Aug. 2000 held 17 reunion events, during which a total of more than 16,000 people met their separated family members and relatives.

Editor: Deng Shasha

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North Korea proposes new family reunions

Call to improve Asia-Pacific relief coordination

Google / AFP

SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific nations should adopt a more coordinated response to relief operations in the disaster-prone area, top regional officials said at a security conference on Sunday.

Malaysian Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi called for the establishment of centres focusing on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) in the region.

"I think (a) few HADR centres have to be set up," he said at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference in Singapore.

This would supplement the existing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) facility governing cooperation among the group's 10 member nations, Ahmad added.

Malaysia has frequently provided aid to ASEAN countries hit by natural disasters, and was involved in giving humanitarian assistance to Myanmar after the reclusive nation was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

New Zealand's Minister of Defence Wayne Mapp, whose government provides relief assistance to small Pacific island states, agreed with Ahmad's call and said action had to be taken.

"We have to move beyond talking about to actually doing something and having centres of excellence, probably regional based, would probably help," Mapp said.

New Zealand was heavily involved in supplying humanitarian aid to Samoa and Tonga after the two Polynesian countries were hit by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2009.

Chilean Defence Minister Jaime Ravinet de la Fuente spoke about his country's experience dealing with a massive earthquake in February this year, and stressed the importance of educating people about disasters.

"I would say that is the key issue. People must be educated (and) should know what to do in case of a threat," he said.

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Palestinian president to pay second visit to Jakarta

Antara News, By Fardah, Thursday, May 27, 2010 19:25 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will pay a working visit to Jakarta on May 28-29, 2010 or about three years after his first state visit here in October 2007.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday, apart from bilateral issues, he and Abbas would also discuss a new chapter in the peace process between Palestine and Israel.

In a statement shortly before leaving for Oslo, Norway, the President said Indonesia would remain consistent in its support for the cause of an independent state of Palestine.

Indonesia had demonstrated this stance at Asian-African forums to boost Palestine`s capacity to become an independent country, Yudhoyono stated.

Also known as Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas was born in Safad, in Palestine in 1935. Following the Jewish invasion and military attacks in Palestine, his family fled Safed in 1948 and settled in Syria.

He co-founded Fatah with Yasser Arafat and accompanied him into exile in Jordan, then Lebanon and then Tunisia. In the early days of the movement, he became respected for his clean and simple living.

Abbas studied law in Egypt before doing a doctorate in Moscow. He is the author of several books.

He served as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority in 2003, and on January 9, 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected President of the Palestine National Authority.

In addition to a bilateral meeting with President Yudhoyono, President Abbas during his one-day stay in Jakarta, as part of his Asian tour taking him also to Vietnam and Malaysia, will hold meetings among others with Vice President Boediono and Arab ambassadors, according to a source of the Palestinian embassy in Jakarta, Thursday (May 27).

Palestine and Indonesia most likely might also sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the construction of Indonesian hospital at Gaza Strip, Palestine, the source said.

Recently, Minister/State Secretary Sudi Silalahi told representatives of Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C) Indonesia, led by MER-C Presidium chairman dr Sarbini Abdul Murad that: "The presence of Indonesian hospital at Gaza Strip is urgent and therefore we have to support it."

He said the Health Ministry has agreed on the construction of the hospital and then allocated Rp20 billion funds to build the health facility at Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Sarbini Abdul Murad said MER-C has also allocated Rp13 billion fund for the construction of the Indonesian hospital at Gaza Strip with the donation from Indonesian community.

Indonesia, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation, has so far refused to establish diplomatic ties with Israel as long as the Jewish state is still occupying Palestine, as the country`s Constitution is against colonialism in any part of the world.

Indonesia and Palestine have committed to embarking on concrete cooperation as it was especially emphasized during President Mahmoud Abbas`s state visit in Jakarta in 2007.

Witnessed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President Abbas in Jakarta, in 2007, Palestine and Indonesia signed a Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on training and courses for Palestinian diplomats and policemen, sister-city cooperation between Al Quds (Jerusalem) and Jakarta, and regular consultations between the two administrations.

Palestinian Ambassador to Indonesia Fariz Mehdawi confirmed to ANTARA in 2007 that the two nations had decided to move forward to concrete cooperation from their previous efforts which were mostly political and moral in nature.

Indonesia has been tirelessly supporting Palestine in various international political and diplomatic arena, especially in the United Nations Security Council and other other bodies.

Last March 2010, The Indonesian government has condemned Israel for its provocative decision to build 1,600 illegal houses in Palestine`s East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Indonesia`s permanent representative to the United Nations, World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international organizations, Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, expressed the condemnation in his capacity as the head of the Indonesian delegation to the 13th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Indonesia`s chief delegate said Indonesia remained deeply concerned about the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where living conditions had deteriorated sharply since the excessive and disproportionate aggression of Operation Cast Lead.

"There were blatant infringements of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibited tampering with or modification of religious heritage sites in occupied areas, and Israel should halt that provocative and illegal policy, as such activities did nothing but increase tensions and hostilities in the region and ultimately hindered efforts towards a long-awaited peace process," Ambassador Djani said.

The report of the High Commissioner outlined many troubling incidents and painted a picture of unacceptable suffering and despair for the Palestinian people.

"There is no doubt that the occupation had resulted in widespread violations of the civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people, and there were breaches of the fundamental human rights to water, sanitation and decent housing, as well as to freedom of religion," he said.

All of those violations, alongside documented incidences of torture and arbitrary detention, were a testament to the occupying power`s clear disregard for basic human rights, he said.

Indonesia also deeply regretted that the protracted conflict remained unresolved, and expressed steadfast support to the diplomatic efforts by the international community to find a just and comprehensive two-State solution leading to the establishment of an independent and democratic State of Palestine.

The Muslim-majority nation also reminded the world that no progress on peace had been made after the Goldstone report, and the recommendations of the latter had not been fully implemented.

In April 2010, the Indonesian government has urged Israel to stop its air raids on the Gaza Strip in Palestine which targeted the civilian population.

The Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, Tengku Faizasyah, said in Jakarta that the recent air raids would hamper the peace efforts between Israel and Palestine.

"The use of military force by Israel in the Gaza Strip will have a great impact on the local people. Their actions in the Gaza Strip are a violation of international law," Faizasyah said recently.

Also early April this year, President of the Palestinian Red Crescent Younis Al-Khatib visited Jakarta and conveyed invitation to Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) Chief Jusuf M Kalla to visit Palestine.

The Palestinian Red Crescent wanted to strengthen cooperation with red cross and red crescent organizations throughout the world, including with PMI, Al-Khatib said.

On the occasion, the PMI chief presented humanitarian aid worth US$100,000 for the Palestinian people.

Last February 2009, PMI and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) dispatched 2,000 blankets and US$120,000 in funds donated by the Indonesian people, for victims of Israeli military attacks in Gaza, Palestine.

In the United Nations Headquarters in New York, early May this year, Indonesia`s Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, criticized Israel for refusing to sign and ratify the NPT which has resulted in the continued exposure of non-nuclear weapon states of the region to nuclear threats by the only country possessing these weapons of mass destruction.

Israel, he warned, has also unleashed risks associated with the operation of "unsafe-guarded nuclear facilities and activities of unknown safety standards".

The Jewish state has also implicitly triggered the threat of a nuclear arms race of "a catastrophic regional and international potential" thereby jeopardising the NPT regime in its entirety, said Natalegawa, echoing the views of the largest single political coalition at the United Nations.

"This situation is unsustainable," as it also jeopardizes the implementation of the 1995 resolution calling for the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, Natalegawa warned.