Tag Archives: education
Syria refugees see no end to their exile as strikes loom
Syria refugees see no end to their exile as strikes loom (AFP) / 6 September 2013 Eyes glued to a television news report on Syria in a Jordan refugee camp, Said Salem has lost hope of returning home, where the 30-month war has forced two million to flee abroad. “The conflict has lasted too long, there is only death and destruction and the world is watching on as a spectator. It must end,” says Salem. Syrian refugees arrive at the Turkish Cilvegozu gate border. – AP file Salem is originally from the southern Syrian province of Daraa like most of the refugees in Jordan’s Zaatari camp which stretches into the desert as far as the eye can see. “We spend most of our time watching the news. It breaks our hearts to see Syria ruined and sinking into a civil war while the world sits still,” says the father of 11. As talk of possible US strikes on targets in Syria grows louder, Salem, who lost his right hand in an army raid a year ago, says that he wants an end to the suffering. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel,” he laments. US President Barack Obama says he is confident he will win congressional approval, as early as next week, for strikes on Syria in response to alleged chemical attacks by the regime on August 21. “The question that always comes up as I talk with my husband is: are we going to return to our country?” asks Hanan, a mother of four daughters. “Our children do not go to school, we no longer have a source of income and nobody is helping us,” the 38-year-old complains. Some refugees managed to flee Syria with money, while others subside on handouts from relatives who work abroad. But many are totally destitute. Opened one year ago to house Syrians fleeing the war, the Zaatari camp today has some 130,000 residents, living in extremely tough conditions. Over the months it has become Jordan’s fifth-biggest city in terms of population. Most of its residents originally come from Daraa, the town in southern Syria where protests against President Bashar Al Assad broke out in March 2011, before morphing into a bloody civil war that has killed more than 110,000 people. On Tuesday, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the number of Syria refugees had already topped two million. “There are no words to express… this tragedy,” Guterres told reporters in Geneva, adding that the exodus showed no sign of abating and risked destabilising the region. In addition to refugees who have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and Egypt, the fighting has also displaced more than six million people, over one quarter of Syria’s population of 22 million. “What is the world waiting for to act?” asks Ali Salman, 38, taking a drag on his cigarette. His five children, who seem weakened, are playing nearby. “We are eating very badly, we are drinking dirty water and there is no care when we get ill. “Why is the world watching the massacres without taking action? Why are they not doing anything for us and our children? More than 100,000 people have died, is that not enough for the world to intervene.” Hassan Nashwa was able to open a store to support the needs of his large family, but says that he cannot see any future for his children, who do not have any education. “The only solution is to return to Syria, because this camp is nothing but a huge prison”. “My main hope is to find my house, my school and my friends again,” adds Mahmud Jamal, 12, who does odd jobs to help the eight members of his family in the camp, including his sick father and a brother wounded by shrapnel. The Jordanian government puts the number of refugees currently in the kingdom at 550,000. But their numbers could rise again as the violence in Syria rages, stretching Jordan’s limited water resources and threatening its fragile social makeup. “Life is difficult in the camp,” says Mohammed Al Darawi. “We are in the middle of a desert… without work of money and our problems are only growing.” Continue reading
Sharing The Risks/Costs Of Biomass Crops
Sep. 4, 2013 — Farmers who grow corn and soybeans can take advantage of government price support programs and crop insurance, but similar programs are not available for those who grow biomass crops such as Miscanthus. A University of Illinois study recommends a framework for contracts between growers and biorefineries to help spell out expectations for sustainability practices and designate who will assume the risks and costs associated with these new perennial energy crops. “The current biomass market operates more along the lines of a take-it-or-leave-it contract, but in order to encourage enhanced participation and promote a more sustainable, stable biomass supply, a new kind of contract needs to be created,” said Jody Endres, a U of I professor of energy and environmental law. Endres said that a good contract gives everyone more certainty. “Incomplete contracts are the hazard,” she said. “We need to develop contracts that nail down all of the details and are transparent about who’s taking on the risk and who’s paying for it. If we get these considerations into the contracts, those who finance this new biomass crop industry will have more certainty to invest.” The study identifies considerations that should be included in the framework for a biomass contract, including a control for moral hazard, risk incentive tradeoff, existing agricultural practices, and risk and management tools to make the industry more sustainable financially and environmentally. Endres said that if biorefineries receive money in the form of carbon credits for reducing pollution, incentives for farmers should be included in contracts because they are the ones who are bearing the risks associated with sustainability practices. “Suppose a sustainability contract lists that the default should be integrated pest management rather than application of traditional pesticides,” Endres said. “The farmer takes on some risk to provide a sustainable product, but the biorefinery gets carbon credit for those sustainable practices. This should be worked into the contract — that if the farmer assumes the risk of IPM as opposed to traditional pesticide options, there has to be some sort of up-front payment or incentive in the contract to account for this risk. Due to the power relationships in this industry, the onus is on the biorefinery to be the leader in developing contracts in this new landscape.” The perennial nature of biomass crops also makes developing contracts challenging. “We’re in a unique environment, and traditional agricultural contracting structures just don’t apply,” Endres said. “Crop insurance is not currently available for farmers who grow biomass crops so they take on additional risk. Likewise, landowners see high prices for traditional commodity crops and do not want to be locked into a multi-year contract with a lessee to grow a perennial biomass crop. It’s complicated,” she said. Endres said that although sustainability requirements are important, having an adequate supply of biomass is important as well. “We’re trying to envision a future in which we have a lot of biomass and one way to secure that is to recognize all of the risks and costs, especially when it comes to sustainability practices. It’s unique, and we do not yet have contracts for this aspect of the industry,” she said. A newly forming biomass standards group, in which Endres holds a leadership role, is looking at how the value of sustainability practices can be measured at the watershed, eco-shed, or air-shed level rather than on the scale of individual farms. Endres said that the working group will examine how to ensure that balance is achieved between producers and consumers of biomass, including through contracts. “I’m optimistic that it can be done,” she said. “Growers and refiners right now are concerned with the industry being financially sound. “There’s also a real need for education in both developed and underdeveloped countries about biomass contracting,” Endres said. “We’re trying to shift the paradigm from traditional agriculture to something that’s more sustainable–and that takes knowledge. If we don’t have that knowledge here in the United States and we’re trying to draft contracts in our very developed system, how is this going to be rolled out in say, Africa, or other areas where the use of production contracts are much more rare, especially in the small farm context?” The research was supported by funding from the Energy Biosciences Institute and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch Project No. ILLU-470-309. Continue reading
Indian rupee, stocks jump on new bank chief’s plans
Indian rupee, stocks jump on new bank chief’s plans (AFP) / 5 September 2013 India’s rupee strengthened and stocks jumped on Thursday after new central bank governor Raghuram Rajan outlined a reform plan aimed at boosting investor confidence and stabilising the ailing currency. Raghuram Rajan, second left, the newly appointed governor of Reserve Bank of India, is received by its Deputy Governor Kamalesh Chandra Chakrabarty, second right, and others as he arrives at the RBI headquarters in Mumbai, India. AP The rupee climbed to 65.75 against the dollar, gaining nearly two percent from its previous close, on investor hopes the worst could be over for the currency, the worst performing in Asia this year. Indian shares jumped as much as 2.96 percent at the open, led by banking stocks, after Rajan took over Wednesday from Duvvuri Subbarao as head of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In the afternoon stocks were up 1.51 percent. Rajan sought to reassure rattled markets with his first speech in the post, outlining a fresh approach to the currency crisis and warning that he may have to take unpopular steps to get Asia’s third largest economy back on track. Sonal Varma, an economist at Nomura Securities, said Rajan had made “an impressive start” but she stressed that a weak growth outlook was still a “major concern”. “In our view, amid the current gloom, the new RBI governor has infused a sense of optimism that he is in charge and that the RBI under him will unleash more financial sector reforms, a medium-term positive for the economy,” she said. Rajan, a former IMF chief economist, emphasised the importance of transparency and consistency in the bank’s actions, after the RBI spent weeks trying to stabilise the rupee with a range of measures. He stressed he would hew to the RBI’s mandate of “securing monetary stability” and sustaining confidence in the value of the country’s money. “This means low and stable expectations of inflation, whether that inflation stems from domestic sources or from changes in the value of the currency, from supply constraints or demand pressures,” he said. India faces its worst financial crisis in decades, as the once-booming economy grapples with sharply slowing growth, high inflation and a record current account deficit. Some analysts fear the economy could be heading for a meltdown with the rupee down around 22 percent against the dollar this year. Rajan’s bold entry to the job, which included financial deregulatory measures such as opening up the country’s banking sector, received rave reviews from economists and the local media. “This was easily the most substantive speech by a Reserve Bank governor on his first day in office,” financial daily Business Standard said on Thursday. With a mock photograph of Rajan in a James Bond-style pose on its front page, The Economic Times newspaper said he had “gotten off to a good start, radiating brisk purpose and optimism”. Rajan, famed for forecasting the 2008 global financial crisis, left his post as a professor at the prestigious University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and returned to India last year before taking up the new job. Continue reading
