DAMASCUS, Syria-The United States and Russia have failed to agree on a date to bring Syria’s disputing sides back to the table to negotiate.  The two powers have currently remained divided over what role Iran should play in an aspired for Geneva peace conference.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League’s top envoy to Syria, reported that even though Russia and the U.S. did not reach an agreement at the end of their discussions, all hope is not lost in resuming negotiations.  Another round of talks is set for November 25^th.

Brahimi further went on to say that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the various divisions among the Syrian opposition.  “It is no secret to anyone that the opposition has a lot of problems and is working seriously to overcome these problems to reach a position and appoint a convincing delegation to represent them in Geneva, and that is what has delayed us a bit,” he said.

Diplomats have experienced numerous challenges throughout the negotiation process with world powers strongly disagreeing over what steps should be taken to end the fighting and how the Syrian government should be shaped moving past President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, has once again insisted that Iran, a supporter of Assad, should join them in the discussion of the Syrian conflict.  Russia has been an avid supporter of Assad as well but Iran’s presence at a Geneva conference would cause controversy among Syrian rebels and their Gulf Arab supporters.

Syria’s Information Minister, Omran al-Zoubi, claimed that the Assad government is not ready to hand over their power causing many to insist that Assad should not be present at any negotiations.

The United Nations announced that outside aid in the form of food, shelter, medicine, and other basic necessities is in need to at least 40 percent of Syrians, as storages are running low.  “It’s a disaster, and it continues,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

More than 9 million people, including 6.5 million who are internally displaced, are in need of humanitarian assistance.  The war has claimed more than 100,000 lives in the past three months.

The plan to incorporate a government body to replace the Assad regime began in June 2012 with talks of establishing a government with full executive powers agreed to by both sides with implementation of elections.  However, once again, no general agreement has been achieved on how this should be done.

For more information, please see the following:

Aljazeera-No date agreed for Syria peace conference-06 November 2013

USA Today-Syria peace talks postponed in blow to Obama-06 November 2013

Associated Press-UN envoy: No deal on Syrian peace talks date-05 November 2013

Reuters-Arab League backs Syria peace talks, urges opposition to go-04 November 2013

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Last week an amateur video showing a native Saudi man beating a migrant worker for allegedly talking to his wife sparked outrage in Saudi Arabia and around the world. The video highlighted the harsh reality of life for millions of migrant workers in the Arab state.

The Saudi government-backed Human Rights Commission has condemned the video. Mohammed Al-Madi, of the Human Rights Commission, said “We are taking this very seriously and are looking into it with Saudi security.” He added “We are doing our utmost to ensure the accused abuser is arrested and tried. We are also doing everything we can to find the abused man, so that we can help him in any way.”

An estimated nine million migrant workers live in Saudi Arabia. Migrant workers make up more than half of the state’s workforce mostly filing manual, clerical and services possessions.

Legal migration into the country depends on the Kafala system which requires migrant workers to be sponsored by their employer’s in order to enter and remain in the country. This system has been criticized by human rights organizations around the world. Human Rights Watch has called this system abusive saying that “the kafala, or sponsorship system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to sponsoring employers, whose written consent is required for workers to change employers or leave the country.”

Human Rights Watch argued that under the Kafala system “employers often abuse this power in violation of Saudi law to confiscate passports, withhold wages and force migrants to work against their will or on exploitative terms.”

Azfar Khan of with the International Labour Organization argued that the Kafala system allows for widespread abuses of labourers. Because many migrant workers are forced to surrender their passports upon entering many Arab states in the Middle East they become vulnerable to abuse.

“When the employer has that kind of power, then they can dictate the working conditions,” explains Khan. “Whether it’s a question of the wage rates, whether it’s a question of the work time. “Because legal residency under this system depends on employer sponsorship, rather than a system of residency less tied to individual employees, migrant workers are often suitable to workplace abuses out of feat that if they defy their bosses or quit their jobs they may be forced to leave the country.

In an effort to reduce the 12% unemployment rate among native Saudis the government announced that it would crack down on illegal migrant workers in the country.

On April 3, 2013 the Saudi government announced an amnesty period for illegal workers which would allow them to get their papers in order or leave the country without being penalized by the state.

The deadline passed on November 4^th and one million worker are estimated to have left the country since the amnesty period began in April while four million are reported to have found employers to sponsor them under the kafala system, making these migrants dependent on their employers for their residency in the state.

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera – Should Saudi Arabia End Its Kafala System? – 4 November 2013

BBC News – Saudi Arabia Rounds Up Migrant Workers As Amnesty Ends – 4 November 2013

The Economic Times – 10,000 Sri Lankan Migrants Return On Saudi Amnesty – 4 November 2013

CNN International – Abuse Video Shocks Saudi Arabia – 4 November 2013

Human Rights Watch – Saudi Arabia: Protect Migrant Workers’ Rights – 2 July 2013

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

HERAT, Afganistan-A recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has discovered that one in ten Afghani households has at least one drug user.  In Herat, it is one in five.

Known as an area of stability and progress in Afghanistan, Herat has become one of the world’s most addicted societies as a global leader in opium production.  Total number of drug users in Afghanistan is estimated to be 1.6 million, which is about 5.3 percent of the population.

The use of opiates has doubled from 2005 to 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with the number of heroin users jumping to more than 140 percent.  However, government funding for treatment and outreach is less than $4 million a year with most treatment programs relying heavily on $12 million a year in extra international funding.

Despite the growing severity in recent years, the drug crisis in Afghanistan is nothing new.  International health officials claim it spawns from the traditional use of opium for medication.  One of the earliest challenges Afghan security forces had to overcome was a public image as a “band of opium-addled thieves.”

“This is a tsunami for our country.  The only thing our drug production has brought us is one million drug users” stated Dr. Ahmad Fawad Osmani, the director of drug demand reduction for the Ministry of Public Health

Rural areas have seen the highest use and worse conditions with drug use as high as 30 percent of the population, based on hair, urine, and saliva studies accumulated by authors of a recent urban study.

To make matters worse, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) recently fired 65 officers after discovering that they were addicted to heroin.  “We have sacked 65 employees who were addicted to heroin and our efforts will continue,” stated the Rahmatullah Nabil, the acting head of NDS.

The men were discovered by way of a project implemented to weed out drug users from the NDS ranks.  The program started in Kabul but will soon be expanding to NDS staff across all of the country’s 34 provinces, said Nabil.

Another method used in the fight against opium has been the success of saffron, a spice fetching thousands of dollars per kilogram.  It is one of the few crops that Afghanistan can use to compete with the profits of opium cultivation.  However, lack of accessible flights and border control of potential businessmen have hindered the saffron market

For more information, please see the following: 

Sydney Morning Herald-Junkie ghettos tell of country’s growing addiction-03 November 2013

New York Times-That Other Big Afghan Crisis, the Growing Army of Addicts-02 November 2013

Stars and Stripes-Options limited for broke, addled and hopeless on Afghanistan’s heroin highway-30 October 2013

Reuters-Afghan intelligence agency sacks 65 ‘heroin addicts’-22 October 2013

 

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A shortage of fuel has led to blackouts across the Gaza Strip after Palestinian Enclave’s only power plant halted production. The plant supplies one third of Electricity to the Gaza Strip. The plant’s operators claimed that they no longer have enough fuel to keep the plant producing electricity for residents of the Gaza Strip after tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt were shut down.

Gaza residents have suffered around eight hours of daily blackouts in recent years as a result of fuel shortages. The Gaza Energy Authority said the plant’s closure could mean Palestinians in Gaza will suffer 12 hours of daily blackouts.

Energy Authority deputy chairman, Fathi el-Sheikh Khalil Said “we have completely stopped the operation of [the] power plant this morning at 6:00 a.m. because we don’t have a single liter of fuel.” He said that the plant was shut down because of the fuel shortage and that the “all parts of life in Gaza will be affected.”

Electricity had been cut off across most of the territory on Friday morning. Khalil blamed the power outage on Israel’s destruction of tunnels used for bringing fuel and other supplies into to Gaza. He also argued that the Western-backed government of the Palestinian Authority has been charging Hamas unreasonable prices for fuel. He said “less than 50 percent of the needs of the Gaza Strip are currently covered by electricity from Israel” he said Gaza “can no longer get Egyptian fuel due to the destruction of tunnels from Egypt.”

While many residents of the Gaza Strip depend on the state of Israel for electricity services Khalil said; “less than 50 percent of the needs of the Gaza Strip are currently covered by electricity from Israel [and] we can no longer get Egyptian fuel due to the destruction of tunnels from Egypt. We tried to get fuel from Israel via the Palestinian Authority, but it has imposed prohibitive taxes.”

The Palestinian Authority to deliver fuel to Gaza without the usual taxes last week in order to help address the electricity crisis. It would have allowed the Hamas government to purchase 400,000 liters of fuel a day. However the Palestinian Authority backed away from its offer.

 According to Khalil; “the plant will remain shut until fuel supplies resume from Egypt through the tunnels or the Rafah border crossing, or from Israel if the Palestinian Authority agrees not to impose the heavy taxes.”

While in the past Gaza has depended on Egypt for fuel, relations between Gaza and the Egyptian state have deteriorated significantly since President Morsi was removed from power in Egypt in July. The military regime in Cairo has begun to destroy tunnels connecting Egypt’s Sinai region to the Gaza Strip. The military regime has cited security concerns related to its counterterrorism efforts in the Sinai Peninsula as a justification for the destruction of the tunnels. Government Officials in Gaza claim that at least 80 percent of the tunnels have been destroyed since the military regime in Egypt took power in July.

For more information please see:

Agence France-Presse – Power Outage across Gaza as Fuel Runs Out: Hamas – 1 November 2013

Al Jazeera – Gaza Power Plant Shuts Down as Fuel Runs Out – 1 November 2013

The Jerusalem Post – Gaza’s Sole Power Plant Shuts Down Due to Fuel Shortage – 1 November 2013

The Jerusalem Post – Power Stops in Gaza Strip as Fuel Runs Out – 1 November 2013

Times of Israel – Power Outage in Gaza as Sole Plant Halts Electricity Production – 1 November 2013