Syria declares emergency for drought-hit northeast

Syria on Monday adopted emergency measures, including food distribution, to help people in the drought-hit northeast of the country, the official Sana news agency said.

It said the authorities “have begun to distribute food aid in the worst drought-affected regions in the northeast” as part of a series of emergency steps. “Nearly 5,200 food rations have been distributed in Al-Hasakah and 15,000 more rations will arrive in the next few days,” said provincial governor Najib Salloum. He added that each food ration comprised “150 kilograms of flour, 25 kg sugar, 25 kg semolina, 10 kg lentils, two kg animal fat, one kg tea, and one kg oil, worth in total 6,000 Syrian pounds (128 dollars)” distributed to the worst-affected families.

Syria’s northeast has been affected by drought for the past three years and 160 villages were abandoned by their inhabitants in 2007 and 2008 because of the climate change, according to a report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) published last week.

khaleejtimes

Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean

Projects to clean up the Mediterranean Sea, establish new sea routes and highways, and harness solar energy could be at the heart of new European efforts to engage with southern neighbors, according to the first set of concrete proposals published Tuesday.

Less than two months before the debut of a new Union for the Mediterranean, pioneered by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the European Commission sought to put its stamp on the plan with a series of recommendations.

While its call for big spending projects in the region will be welcomed in Paris, the document issued Tuesday also proposes a further dilution of Sarkozy's original aim of giving the European Union's southern states a bigger role in the venture than northern EU counterparts. ...

What is not disputed is the thinking behind the plan: that previous initiatives have largely failed. Since 1995 the EU has engaged with southern neighbors through the so-called Barcelona Process but with few tangible results.

The new document concedes that the Barcelona Process suffered from "weak visibility and the perception by citizens that little is done to tackle their daily problems and real needs." European diplomats hope the new organization, known officially as the "Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean," will give southern Mediterranean countries a greater stake because they will be on a level of parity with the EU.

Critics point out that a central problem will remain: the diverse southern Mediterranean membership, which includes Syria and Israel.

The commission said the new union should hold summit meetings every two years, but avoided endorsing any location for its headquarters. Tunis, however, has emerged as a prime candidate. The commission called for two parallel sets of co-presidencies - to be held by France for an initial six months on the EU side. Thereafter this would be held by the new president of the European Council or high representative for foreign affairs - posts established under the new Treaty of Lisbon.

The document released Tuesday called for improved maritime and road infrastructure, including new sea routes and upgraded port facilities, and a new road to link the Arab states of North Africa - Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

The new body should reinvigorate a plan approved in 2006 to clean the Mediterranean Sea of pollution, a 2007 program to develop solar power, and a proposal for a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010, the document said.

IHT

More funds for vital investment in EU’s neighbourhood

The EU’s Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF) will be formally launched today, May 6th, by External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, representatives of EU Member States and ENP partner countries.

The NIF is a key instrument of the ENP and will mobilise additional funding for infrastructure projects mainly in the energy, transport and environment sectors in the entire area. The Commission has already made available €100 out of the €700 million it intends to allocate to the NIF for the period 2007-2013. On top of this, the Facility is open to contributions from all EU Member States.

"Concrete projects financed under this facility will bring tangible benefits to citizens of the neighbouring countries and the Union alike and will bring our partners closer to the EU,” Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner has said.

Cyprus water crisis highlights climate change

"It's bad. Very bad," says Vlassis Partassides, head of water management at Cyprus's water development department. "If the drought continues for a fourth year, the consequences will be very severe," he told Reuters.

Partassiades said that since 1972, rainfall had fallen by 20 percent but the runoff -- the inflow into reservoirs -- had declined by 40 percent, because of rising temperatures and the resulting increase in evaporation. "Climate change is clearly evidenced in Cyprus," said Costas Papastavros, head of the island's national climate change unit.

"Climate change is not only about a rise in temperature, but also about extreme weather conditions, and drought is one of them. Desertification is also becoming a serious problem. "It is not just that we do not have water in dams for irrigation, but we are looking at a decline in the productivity of soil, and we have a tremendous problem."

Mediterranean Sharks, Rays Facing Oblivion

The newly published World Conservation Union (IUCN) report identifies the waters between Europe and Africa as having the highest percentage of threatened sharks and rays in the world. Some 42 percent of Mediterranean species are at risk, says the IUCN Red List assessment, performed by the conservation body's Shark Specialist Group.

The group blames the plummeting populations on habitat degradation, sport angling, human disturbance, and overfishing—including fish caught as unintended bycatch. "Our analyses reveal the Mediterranean Sea as one of the world's most dangerous places on Earth for sharks and rays," Claudine Gibson, IUCN Shark Specialist Group program officer and co-author of the report, said in a statement.

Link

Spain aims to restore coastlines look

Spain plans to restore a fifth of its coastline from overdeveloped concrete jungle to a more natural state by enforcing legislation to demolish illegal construction, officials said Monday. The €5 billion (US$7.2 billion) plan, which would affect about 700 kilometers (435 miles) of coast, was approved by the government in Cabinet last week and is due to be presented to regional authorities Wednesday, an Environment Ministry spokesman said.

Spain's coasts have for decades acted as magnets for tourism and property development, offering Mediterranean and Canary Island seaside locations to which northern Europeans — and Spaniards — have flocked for sun-drenched holidays. A real-estate boom has seen housing developments, golf courses and holiday complexes spring up along many of the once largely unspoiled coasts.

IHT Europe

MEDSTAT II meeting

General Directors of the Mediterranean Partner Countries' National Statistics Institutes were in Brussels on September 6-7, 2007 at the invitation of EuropeAid and Eurostat for the first Partnership Group Meeting organised within the framework of the MEDSTAT II regional programme.

The aim of the meeting was to bring together all those involved in the project for a frank discussion about the results achieved so far and future challenges, as well as to start a dialogue on future statistical cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

Euro-Mediterranean statistical cooperation began in 1996 through the regional programme MEDSTAT. Ten years later (January 2006), MEDSTAT II, a three-year, €30 million programme, was launched with ten partner countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey). It deals with statistics in nine thematic sectors (Trade, National Accounts, Social Statistics, Energy, Agriculture, Environment, Tourism, transport and Migration) and three horizontal sectors (Training, Information System and Dissemination). The programme’s main objective is to strengthen the capacity of the partner countries’ National Statistics Institutes and each country’s own National Statistical System.

Conservation of ancient sites

The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi unveiled an ambitious plan on Monday to protect ancient Greek ruins, conserve the country's pristine Mediterranean coastline and draw eco-tourists to this former pariah state.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi's plan is part of an attempt to dramatically change the image of Libya — to an ecologically friendly tourist destination — at a time when the country is nearing its long-sought political goal: getting into the West's good graces.

The younger Gadhafi announced the project at a lavish ceremony inside a 2,200-year-old Greek gymnasium in the ruins of the ancient city of Cyrene, one of the country's largely untouched and unvisited antiquity sites that Libya hopes will pull in foreigners.

"Our intention is to build a complete and sustainable social, cultural, economic and environmental system in which the needs of the present allow for the needs of future generations," said Gadhafi, standing on the gymnasium's open plaza surrounded by tall, beige-colored columns.

"Its time now to join developed countries and make a statement that we are also concerned about the environment and culture," Gadhafi, who is known in Libya as "The Engineer," told reporters after the ceremony.

Touted as a reformer, 36-year-old Gadhafi has increasingly been sharing his father's spotlight and reaching out the West to soften Libya's image and return it to the international mainstream. He has no official government post, but many see him as the man most likely to take power in the North African country when his 65-year-old father steps down or dies. After spending decades as the United States' sworn enemy, Libya is embarking on a political and economic change of heart.

IHT

Committee of the Regions supports strengthening of ENP

Istvan Sertö-Radics, 1st Vice-President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) Commission for External Relations, presented the CoR's political strategy related to European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) during the high-level conference held in Brussels on 3 September.

He told the Conference that the CoR contributes to the implementation and assessment of a variety of new neighbourhood policy instruments and programmes, particularly in the field of cross-border and interregional cooperation, along with institution-building programmes, which are of particular importance for local and regional authorities.

During the conference workshop on governance and stability, Lucio Gussetti, Director of the CoR Directorate for Consultative Works, said that the CoR had proposed setting up a forum of local and regional authorities of the Euromed region, as well as engaging in local and regional election monitoring in ENP countries.

The representative voice of regions and cities in the EU, the CoR believes that cooperation at local and regional level across of Europe is a major pre-requisite for political stability, sustainable growth and protection of the environment in the neighbourhood area.

Mediterranean Sea turns to Indian Ocean

The temperature of the Mediterranean Sea has risen from 30 degrees Celsius to 32 degrees Celsius since 1970, reported Professor Bayram Öztürk, having returned to Bodrum after spending three months in the seas of Cyprus and Syria aboard the Istanbul University Faculty of Fisheries research ship ‘Yunus.' Öztürk is in charge of the research ship that carries out studies in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

“The temperature difference between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea is now two degrees. Therefore 33 species have come to the Mediterranean passing the Red Sea. Among them there are dangerous species threatening mankind,” said Öztürk. He attributed the ,ncreasing temperatures to global warming and contamination.

Öztürk said that the Mediterranean is becoming increasingly tropical each day. He pointed out that the species of Indian Ocean rival the species of the Mediterranean. “Therefore, we need to conduct more research. They harm the existence of typical Mediterranean life. We have to find permanent solutions and develop new projects to protect our seas which are being ruined by contamination.” Öztürk said that a limit should be set for the number tourist facilities built on the coastline. He also urged for the establishment of solid waste processing centers.
Turkish Daily

Lybian infrastructural projects

Libya inaugurates gigantic water reservoir in Abou Zayyan

The chairman of the Kadhafi Foundation for Development, Seif-Ul Islam Moammar Kadhafi, inaugurated on Saturday in Abou Zayyan (90km south-west of Tripoli), the Abou Zayyan reservoir of the water resources of the grand artificial river, aimed at meeting fresh water needs for domestic and agricultural purposes in the region.

The water resources in the Abou Zayyan reservoir come from a network of huge aqueducts with a diameter of 2.8, the Sidi Sayeh reservoir (50km south of Tripoli), the water of the grand artificial river via the localities of Rabta (80km south east of Tripoli) and Yaaguib where there are two reservoirs with a capacity of 400,000m3 each.

The implementation of the Abou Zayyan reservoir project started in 2004. The An-Nahr company which is under the control of the office in charge of the management of the water resources of the grand artificial river, has built the aqueducts of this project in its factories located in Brega and Serir.

This important Libyan hydraulic project called the "grand artificial river" was implemented in five stages, the first being operational since September 1994, ten years after the inauguration of the works assigned to a South-Korean firm.

At its final stage, the project will help to supply all the Libyan regions with drinking water, particularly northern towns such as Benghazi, Jdabia and Syrte, and to irrigate fertile plains in order to ensure food self-sufficiency and economic independence eventually for the Libyan people.

The cost of this project is about US$25 billions. Its implementation is in line with the studies on environmental problems linked to the "excessive" exploitation of underground water, as well as sea to water infiltration and pollution.

Work begins on 1 bln eur Libya airport

Libya said work has begun on a new 1 billion euro airport for the capital Tripoli which will be able to welcome 20 mln travellers per year.

The work is being carried out by a consortium of six companies including Vinci of France, Oderbrecht of Brazil and TAV of Turkey, under the supervision of a French research consultancy, state news agency JANA cited project director Abdel Majid Sadah as saying.

The 1,165 hectare site will be able to handle up to 100 planes, with a car park capacity of 4,400 spaces, Sadah said.

Libya’s Qadhafi launches sat-channel

The son of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi launched a satellite channel from Tripoli on August 20.

Sayf-al-Islam Qadhafi has launched Al-Libiyah, the first stage of a new media group he says he will build from Tripoli. The channel’s slogan “Together for the sake of tomorrow’s Libya”, explains that the aim behind the new media is to steer away from the usual "classical" approaches in the official media organs and added that the new channel would be committed to the national line but not be subjected to very close censorship.

Local reports say $20m has been invested in the new project. BBC Monitoring, speaking about the project, said: “The new channel is one of the media tools of the 9/1 Company that is owned by Al-Qadhafi Development Foundation that has been managed by Al-Qadhafi's son for years as a nongovernmental organization that is seen as the front for his political and media activities”.