EU temporarily holds back food aid in Somalia after UN records widespread theft

Internally displaced women lining up at a food distribution center in Afgoye, Somalia. (AFP file photo)
Internally displaced women lining up at a food distribution center in Afgoye, Somalia. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 19 September 2023
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EU temporarily holds back food aid in Somalia after UN records widespread theft

Internally displaced women lining up at a food distribution center in Afgoye, Somalia. (AFP file photo)
  • One senior EU official said the decision was taken after the UN investigation concluded that landowners, local authorities, members of the security forces and humanitarian workers were all involved in stealing aid intended for vulnerable people

UNITED NATIONS/NAIROBI/GENEVA: The European Union executive has temporarily suspended funding for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia, two senior EU officials told Reuters on Monday, after a UN investigation found widespread theft and misuse of aid, which had been meant to avert a famine.
The European Commission gave more than $7 million in aid to the WFP’s operations in Somalia last year, a fraction of the more than $1 billion it received in total donations, according to UN data.
EU member states gave much more money on a bilateral basis. It was not immediately clear whether any would also suspend aid.
Balazs Ujvari, a spokesman for the European Commission, neither confirmed nor denied specifically a temporary suspension but said: “So far, the EU has not been informed by its UN partners of a financial impact on EU-funded projects.
“Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor the situation and abide by our zero-tolerance approach to fraud, corruption or misconduct,” he said.
The WFP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One senior EU official said the decision was taken after the UN investigation concluded that landowners, local authorities, members of the security forces and humanitarian workers were all involved in stealing aid intended for vulnerable people.
This official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the aid would be restored after the WFP meets additional conditions, including on vetting of partners on the ground in Somalia. The second senior EU official confirmed that.
A third source, also an EU official, said the Commission was “cooperating actively with WFP to resolve systemic defects” but said no aid was suspended at this stage.
The July 7 report, which is marked “strictly confidential,” was commissioned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters. The contents of the report were first published on Monday by Devex, a media outlet focused on international development.
It cited internally displaced persons (IDPs) as saying they were coerced into paying up to half of the cash assistance they received to people in positions of power in the face of threats of eviction, arrest or de-registration from beneficiary lists.
Three months ago the WFP and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended food aid to neighboring Ethiopia in response to the widespread diversion of donations.
The European Commission contributes 10 million euros ($10.69 million) to Somalia and Ethiopia via the WFP, with the suspension covering part of that, according to one of the senior EU officials.
The United States is by far Somalia’s biggest humanitarian donor. Last year, it contributed more than half of the $2.2 billion of funding that went to the humanitarian response there.
USAID spokesperson Jessica Jennings said in a statement that the United States was working to understand the extent of the diversion and was “already taking steps to protect beneficiaries and ensure taxpayer money is used to benefit vulnerable persons in Somalia, as intended.”
An official at the agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the situations in Ethiopia and Somalia were different and USAID was not planning to pause food assistance in the latter.
The Somali Disaster Management Office, which coordinates the government’s humanitarian response, said in a statement on Monday that Somali authorities were committed to investigating the UN report’s findings, while noting that the current aid delivery systems operate “outside of the government channels.”
Guterres’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

’WIDESPREAD AND SYSTEMIC’
Donors boosted funding to Somalia last year as humanitarian officials warned of a looming famine due to the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades.
Famine was averted, according to official data, but as many as 43,000 people, half of them children under 5, died last year as a result of the drought, researchers have estimated.
The UN report did not attempt to quantify the amount of aid that was diverted but said its findings “suggest that post-delivery aid diversion in Somalia is widespread and systemic.”
In all, investigators collected data from 55 IDP sites in Somalia and found aid diversion in all of them, the report said. Some 3.8 million people are displaced in Somalia – one of the highest rates in the world.
Aid distribution has been a problem in Somalia for decades, complicated by weak government institutions, widespread insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and the marginalization of minority clans.
Since revelations of aid theft during a 2011 famine, humanitarian agencies have converted most of their assistance to cash-based transfers that have been presented by some officials as less vulnerable to corruption.
The UN report was the latest evidence showing that cash-based systems can be exploited too. It identified a variety of perpetrators, led by so-called “gatekeepers,” powerful individuals from dominant local clans.
These gatekeepers leverage their influence over access to camp sites and food beneficiary lists to coerce payments out of IDPs, the report said.
Members of the security forces also play a role by intimidating and sometimes arresting people who refuse to pay, while some humanitarian workers collude with gatekeepers to pocket stolen funds, the report said.
While famine has been averted for now, the report warned that inadequate humanitarian funding could imperil fragile progress.
Aid budgets are under strain globally and to date only 36 percent of the $2.6 billion that the UN says is needed for Somalia’s humanitarian response this year has been funded. ($1 = 0.9355 euros)

 


Italy to step up age checks as migrant numbers surge

Italy to step up age checks as migrant numbers surge
Updated 6 sec ago
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Italy to step up age checks as migrant numbers surge

Italy to step up age checks as migrant numbers surge
  • X-ray techniques to ascertain age criticized by experts as unreliable
  • European Commission president visits Lampedusa amid rift with Tunisia

London: Italy will speed up age checks on migrants and deport those who falsely claim to be under the age of 18, amid a standoff between the EU and Tunisia over arrangements to stem the flow of people from North Africa to Europe, The Times reported on Thursday.

So far, 11,650 unaccompanied minors have arrived in Italy this year out of a total of 133,139 people — nearly double the number at the same stage last year. Under Italian law, migrants younger than 18 cannot be repatriated.

Italy currently uses psychological evaluation of migrants to determine age under a 2017 law, but it is now expected that X-rays of wrist bones will be used more frequently instead after new rules were approved on Wednesday.

Campaigners warn that the wrist X-ray approach to age verification is unreliable. “All the studies show you cannot use it to establish age with any certainty. There is a two-year margin of error,” Antonella Inverno, head of research, data and policy with Save the Children in Italy, told The Times.

Others have suggested X-raying molar teeth and collar bones as more reliable ways of ascertaining age.

“The collar bone is the best because it’s the last bone to completely form, but you would also need to consider ethnicity. Even then you still have an age range,” said Cristina Cattaneo, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Milan.

The new decree will also see minors older than 16 placed in adult migrant holding centers, which has raised concerns across Italy as 21,000 unaccompanied minors, many of them Egyptian, have disappeared from such facilities.

Italian Sen. Sandra Zampa said: “Protecting minors immediately after they arrive is crucial. If you go to big markets in cities at 4 a.m. you will find Egyptian kids at work.”

The moves come as Italy continues to bear the brunt of an increased flow of people from North Africa, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni facing increased pressure from within her own party and from her coalition ally Matteo Salvini.

This week Meloni visited the island of Lampedusa, which has experienced a surge in migrant numbers in recent days, alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said: “The future of Europe depends on its ability to tackle epoch-making challenges of our time and the challenge of illegal immigration is for sure one of them.”

Officials in Brussels, meanwhile, are said to be displeased with Tunisia after the number of people leaving the country for Europe increased despite a deal struck in July to reduce boat crossings in exchange for millions of euros in aid.

Sources in Tunisia said the money from Europe had not been delivered, and President Kais Saied denied entry into the country to a number of European Commission representatives and members of the European Parliament earlier this month.

“I imagine the commission delegation will be welcome in Tunisia when the financial support promised is delivered,” Tarek Kahlaoui, former head of the Tunisian Institute of Strategic Studies, told The Times.


EU impatience builds over thorny migration reform

EU impatience builds over thorny migration reform
Updated 28 September 2023
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EU impatience builds over thorny migration reform

EU impatience builds over thorny migration reform
  • Key proposals include lengthening the detention period of irregular migrants arriving on EU soil from 12 weeks to 20 weeks and accelerating evaluations of asylum applications

BRUSSELS: The EU will seek Thursday to make progress on a troubled reform of its policy toward asylum-seekers and migrants, with many member states looking to coax Germany to agree key measures.
Paralysis on the issue has caused frustration in the 27-nation bloc as it faces a rise in irregular migration. The arrival of thousands of asylum-seekers on the Italian island of Lampedusa has spurred matters.
The aim of the reform, put on the table three years ago, is to have EU countries share the burden posed by the arrivals, either by taking in some of the migrants who mainly arrive in Italy or Greece or contributing money to those that do.
The text, drawn up by the European Commission, is in part a bid to forge Europe-wide solidarity in case of a repeat of the massive 2015-2016 influx of asylum-seekers, most of whom were Syrians fleeing their civil war.
Key proposals include lengthening the detention period of irregular migrants arriving on EU soil from 12 weeks to 20 weeks and accelerating evaluations of asylum applications.
In July, an attempt to get the reform adopted failed when the required weighted majority of EU countries was not met.
Hungary, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic voted against the package, while Germany, Slovakia and the Netherlands abstained.
Germany — a heavyweight voting power — wanted carve-outs for minors and families.
Its foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, on Sunday warned that the current proposal would “de facto prompt a large number of unregistered refugees to head toward Germany if there were a crisis”.
But German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Wednesday told Handelsblatt newspaper that Berlin was determined to “finalize” revised EU policy on migration.
Several EU countries have called for the file to be settled quickly.
“We have no time to lose,” Belgium’s minister for migration Nicole de Moor said during a conference Monday organized by the European Policy Center think tank. Failure to agree the pact “could threaten European unity”.
To put pressure, the European Parliament last week decided to pause its negotiations with EU member states on aspects of the pact, dealing with reinforced security along the bloc’s outer border.
One relates to Eurodac, a biometric database for asylum-seekers, and the introduction of a mandatory screening procedure of irregular arrivals.
The goal of the EU is to have the reform adopted before European elections next June that will usher in a new European Parliament and commission.
The next cycle in EU politics could see a political shift in the European Parliament, given the rise of rightwing parties in several EU countries, and would see Hungary and Poland — both hostile to hosting asylum-seekers — take turns holding the rotating EU presidency that sets policy agendas.


Biden isn’t paying much attention to the 2024 GOP debate. He’s already zeroing in on Trump

Biden isn’t paying much attention to the 2024 GOP debate. He’s already zeroing in on Trump
Updated 28 September 2023
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Biden isn’t paying much attention to the 2024 GOP debate. He’s already zeroing in on Trump

Biden isn’t paying much attention to the 2024 GOP debate. He’s already zeroing in on Trump
  • Biden is drawing a contrast with the GOP logjams in Congress, seeking to showcase what he is getting done
  • Says he is running to prevent Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans from destroying American democracy

SAN FRANCISCO, California: President Joe Biden was raising campaign cash in San Francisco on Wednesday while seven Republican presidential hopefuls held a debate down the coast in Simi Valley. Biden wasn’t paying them much attention because he’s already zeroing in on Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner who wasn’t on the stage.

The president has been increasingly calling out Trump by name and referring to him as his “likely opponent” in 2024, signaling a likely rematch from four years earlier and warning of what the Democratic incumbent sees as major dangers to the nation if he is not reelected.
“I’m running because Democracy is still at stake in 2024. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” he said during one fundraiser, referring to a Trump campaign slogan and skipping entirely over Trump’s GOP rivals.
Biden’s trip to the West this week is counterprogramming of sorts as a government shutdown looms, House Republicans launch impeachment hearings, the Republican debate unfolds and Trump makes a campaign stop in Michigan to court autoworkers.

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Drake Enterprises, an automotive parts manufacturer, on September 27, 2023 in Clinton Township, Michigan. President Joe Biden met with striking UAW workers the day before at a General Motors parts facility. (Getty Images/AFP)

Biden is drawing a contrast with the GOP logjams in Congress, seeking to showcase what he is getting done and trying to make the case that will continue as long as he wins a second term.
“I’m running because important freedoms we have now are at stake,” Biden told supporters at a Tuesday night fundraiser. “The right to choose. The right to vote. The right to be who you are, love who you love. They’re being attacked and being shredded right now.”
Earlier Tuesday, Biden became the first modern president to walk a picket line when he joined UAW members in the Detroit area. The union has expanded its strike against Detroit automakers by walking out of spare-parts warehouses in 20 states.
Biden met with the science and technology advisers on Wednesday to discuss artificial intelligence, vaccine misinformation and other concerns. He said he did not think a government shutdown was unavoidable.
“I don’t think anything is inevitable when it comes to politics,” the president said. When asked what could be done to avoid it, he said, “If I knew that I would have done it already.”
Before he heading to Phoenix in the evening, Biden headlined three Northern California fundraisers, avoiding for now the famous names — and bank accounts — in Los Angeles as the actors’ strike wears on, although the writers’ strike ended Tuesday.
In Arizona, a critical swing state he won in 2020, Biden will pay tribute to the late US Sen. John McCain and give a democracy-focused address on Thursday.
Trump, meanwhile, railed against electric vehicles during a speech in Michigan at a non-unionized auto parts supplier, shortly before the second debate of the primary season got underway without him. Biden never mentioned the debate, but at his final fundraiser of the night, he told supporters Trump was out for revenge.
“He’ll seek revenge for what’s happened ... you know all the assertions he’s made,” Biden said. “Donald Trump does believe we’re a nation driven by anger and fear, and is playing on it. He says we’re a failed nation.
“Did you ever think you’d hear a former president of the United States say those kinds of things?”
Trump is facing multiple criminal indictments, including charges related to the Republican’s role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden. Nonetheless, Trump is the most popular choice among Republicans at this point for the party’s White House nomination.
Nearly two-thirds of Republicans — 63 percent — now say they want him to run again, according a poll last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up slightly from the 55 percent who said the same in April when Trump began facing a series of criminal charges.
While 74 percent of Republicans say they would support Trump in November 2024, 53 percent of those in the survey say they would definitely not support him if he is the nominee. An additional 11 percent say they would probably not support him.
Biden doesn’t fare much better, with 26 percent overall wanting to see him run again, with 47 percent of Democrats saying they want him to run, compared with 37 percent in January.
 


Pakistani vocational school helps Afghan women refugees build businesses

Pakistani vocational school helps Afghan women refugees build businesses
Updated 28 September 2023
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Pakistani vocational school helps Afghan women refugees build businesses

Pakistani vocational school helps Afghan women refugees build businesses
  • Officials say hundreds of thousands of Afghans have traveled to Pakistan since foreign forces left and the Taliban took over in 2021

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: In a small workshop in the bustling northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, a dozen Afghan women sit watching a teacher show them how to make clothes on a sewing machine.
The skills center was set up last year by Peshawar resident Mahra Basheer, 37, after seeing the steady influx of people from neighboring Afghanistan where they face an economic crisis and growing restrictions on women since the Taliban took over in 2021.
Trying to create options for women to become financially independent, she opened the workshop to teach tailoring as well as digital skills and beauty treatments. Basheer quickly found hundreds of women enrolling and has a long wait list.
“If we get assistance, I think we will be able to train between 250 and 500 students at one time, empowering women who can play an important role in the community,” Basheer said.
Officials say hundreds of thousands of Afghans have traveled to Pakistan since foreign forces left and the Taliban took over in 2021. Even before then, Pakistan hosted some 1.5 million registered refugees, one of the largest such populations in the world, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
More than a million others are estimated to live there unregistered. Grappling with an economic crisis of its own, Pakistan’s government is increasingly anxious about the number of Afghans arriving, officials say. Lawyers and officials have said scores of Afghans have been arrested in recent months on allegations they don’t have the correct legal documents to live in Pakistan.
Basheer said that her main focus was expanding operations for Afghan women and she has also included some Pakistani women in the program to boost their opportunities in the conservative area. Once graduating from the three-month course, the women are focused on earning a modest but meaningful income, often starting their own businesses.
Nineteen-year-old Afghan citizen Fatima who had undertaken training at the center, said she now wanted to open a beauty parlour in Peshawar – currently banned in her home country just a few hours away.
“Right now my plan is to start a salon at home. Then to work very professionally so that I can eventually open a very big salon for myself,” she said.


Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front — officials

Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front — officials
Updated 28 September 2023
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Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front — officials

Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front — officials
  • Ukraine’s General Staff reported air strikes on four localities in the area and said 15 towns and villages had come under artillery and mortar attack

Ukrainian troops held off determined attacks on Wednesday by Russian forces trying to regain lost positions on the eastern front, military officials said, while analysts suggested Kyiv’s forces were also making progress in the southern theater.
The Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive in June intending to recoup ground in the east and in the past two weeks announced the capture of two key villages, Andriivka and Klishchiivka, near the shattered city of Bakhmut.
Its forces are also trying to advance southward to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge established by Russia between the annexed Crimean Peninsula and positions it holds in the east.
Ilia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television: “We continue to repel intense enemy attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.
“The enemy is still storming these positions with the hope of recapturing lost positions, but without success.”
There had been 544 Russian shelling incidents in the past 24 hours in the area, seven combat clashes and four air attacks, Yevlash said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky referred briefly in a post on the Telegram messaging app to “our advance in the Donetsk sector” in the east, but provided no details.
Ukraine’s General Staff reported air strikes on four localities in the area and said 15 towns and villages had come under artillery and mortar attack.
In its account of military activity, Russia’s Defense Ministry also reported heavy fighting in the area, saying its forces had beaten back 10 attacks by Ukrainian troops near Klishchiivka and further south, near the village of Nevelske.
Ukrainian officials have spoken of gains in the drive southward, with General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of forces in the south, telling CNN last week of a “breakthrough,” while noting that progress was slower than had been hoped.
Zelensky and other officials have said the counteroffensive will take time and have dismissed Western critics who said the advance has been too slow and beset by strategic errors.
Tarnavskyi referred to the village of Verbove, which other officials have said Ukrainian forces are poised to seize. Ukrainian forces are targeting several other villages as they progress through Zaporizhzhia region toward the major town of Tokmak.
“There have been three or four days of painstaking hard work by our assault group and commanders conducting tactical tasks in this area which have led to very serious problems for the Russians,” military analyst Roman Svitan told NV Radio.
“I would not speak of a breakthrough until we reach Tokmak.”