Lebanon under siege http://www.lebanonundersiege.gov.lb offers up-to-date information on relief efforts and diplomatic initiatives. The site lists locations of shelter and Aid distribution, along with a tally of damage, casualties and official statements. Significantly, the site is available in three languages. This site is the official Lebanese government source of information.
1-General situation.
In a press conference held Thursday at the Grand Serail, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced compensation plans for war-stricken citizens outside Beirut's southern suburbs. The premier said that 10 percent of aid to Lebanon has been handed over to the Higher Relief Committee (HRC) and 90 percent to civil institutions.
The premier stressed that the HRC would soon issue a report detailing its accomplishments, the donations received by foreign and local parties and the mechanisms adopted to help the Lebanese since the first day of war. He added that all donations received by the committee and distributed to the Lebanese were listed on its Web site.
The premier said 92 bridges had been destroyed by Israeli attacks, 68 of which would be rebuilt by grants from Lebanese figures and institutions. "Six bridges have been built by a grant from France, six others from Russia and one from Britain," he stated, adding that 151 roads have been repaired so far by the Public Works and Transport Ministry. As to the electricity sector, the Premier said two of the five generation units at the Jiyyeh power plant have been restored and all distribution wires repaired. He added that the Council of the South would assess damage caused to residential and non-residential buildings in the South and the western Bekaa Valley, while the Ministry of the Displaced would evaluate damage in the other Lebanese areas, except for Beirut's southern suburbs.
The Prime Minister said the government has established special mechanisms for countries wishing to donate money and other forms of aid to Lebanon. The prime minister also said the villages that donors have pledged to rebuild represent 75 percent of the total amount of destroyed towns. He said many countries had already pledged to rebuild destroyed villages, explaining that Saudi Arabia would rebuild 29 villages; Kuwait 21 villages; Qatar, four; the United Arab Emirates, 18; Jordan, seven; Egypt, seven; Spain, five; Syria, three villages; Yemen, one village; and Bahrain, one village.
A statement released by the Prime Minister office following the new conference said the government would pay LL 50 million for each totally destroyed residential unit and a maximum of LL 40 million for every partially destroyed residential unit in two installments.
A Turkish frigate with some 220 personnel aboard will sail for Lebanon's coast on Friday, the Turkish navy said Thursday. Turkish television said 260 military engineers also will fly to Lebanon next week.
Meanwhile, German warships with up to 2,400 personnel aboard are anchored at the nearby island of Cyprus. They are to sail to Lebanon by mid-month to take charge of the multinational naval force tasked with preventing arms shipments to Hezbollah.
Together, those deployments would bring the force strength, currently at 5,200 troops, to 8,000. Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, said additional contingents are in the pipeline. "I think we're in line with the plan" of reaching full strength by end of November, he told The Associated Press.
Indonesia has said it plans to dispatch 1,000 troops by the end of October. Malaysia and Bangladesh, among other countries, also have promised troops.
UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) international civilian staff will be more than double, and this will definitely influence for the better the financial market, the mission said in news release today. UNIFIL staff members purchase commodities, rent apartments, enroll their children in schools and travel. "In addition, UNIFIL employees have many visitors who will have a significant impact on tourism and this is priceless, it improves the reputation of the country," the mission's Acting Chief Administrative Officer Jean-Pierre Ducharme said. As mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, UNIFIL strength is to increase to up to 15,000 international troops before the end of 2006. "The soldiers spend a lot of money here, they visit local attractions, eat out, travel and this, in the end, helps to stimulate the economy," Mr. Ducharme said. Over the last three years, UNIFIL spent approximately 60 per cent of its budget on procuring from local companies. During the past year alone, some $40 million went back to the Lebanese economy. "Obviously, this number will increase, but it gives a good indication on how UNIFIL provides something positive for the Lebanese market," Mr. Ducharme added.
The Lebanese army has warned against hunting in south Lebanon where its soldiers have deployed alongside U.N. peacekeepers to consolidate a ceasefire, the military said Thursday. "Some people are still hunting in the zone of the deployment of the army and UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), impeding the mission of these forces and exposing them to risks posed by mines and bomblets," it said. The army warned that hunters' guns would be confiscated, and noted that hunting has been banned across Lebanon since 1997 as part of conservation measures.
The International Criminal Court should investigate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes for a bombing campaign in Lebanon that blocked access to food and water, a United Nations rights expert said Thursday. Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Human Rights Council's special envoy on the "right to food," said Israel's bombing of farmland and blockade of Lebanon's ports in its month-long war with Hizbullah -- during the main farming and fishing season -- caused considerable hardship to the Lebanese that was still being felt
The head of the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture (KRC) urged the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday to create a tribunal to try Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the recent war on Lebanon. "Israel should compensate the Lebanese for the losses inflicted during the July offensive," Mohammad Safa said. Speaking during the council's second session in Geneva, Safa called for releasing all Arab detainees held in Israeli prisons, as well as for revealing the fate of missing persons believed to have been taken by Israeli forces.
The KRC official also called on countries "that provided Israel with weapons and munitions that were used to bombard Lebanon" to offer the same amount of support to the reconstruction process.
The Norwegian Red Cross shipped 10 heavy duty ambulances to Lebanon on Thursday to help provide medical assistance in war-damaged areas, officials said. "Damaged roads after the war (with Israel) have made it difficult for normal ambulances to make it through. So, we sent 10, off-road ambulances to the Lebanese Red Cross," said Bernt G. Apeland, spokesman for the aid group in Oslo. The ambulances are fully equipped and were donated by the Norwegian military. In August, the Norwegian Red Cross sent 10 similar ambulances and 28 trucks for distributing emergency aid to the Lebanese Red Cross.
Tomooh has announced its scholarship recipients under the pledged $200,000 fund which will contribute towards tuition fees of the winning students for the 2006/2007 academic year. A total of 176 students from all over Lebanon received their certificates and scholarships at a ceremony attended by Lebanon's minister of education Dr Khaled Kabbani.
Tomooh Scholarships, which was launched by PepsiCo International in April 2006, has been managed and implemented in partnership with the prominent Lebanese non-profit organization, Ajialouna.
Education and Higher Education Minister Khaled Qabbani launched the 2007 Mary Haskell Literature Award. The Haskell Award was first created in 1988 by Judge Antoine Chidiac in order to pay tribute to Mary Haskell, "the first woman to have believed in Gibran Khalil Gibran's genius and to have offered him a scholarship to study fine arts in Paris." The award is worth LL 1,500,000 and will be granted to the best literary commentary written by students from public and private secondary schools in the Northern governorates.
The holy month of Ramadan has been a little less painful for the impoverished and destitute in Sidon this year, thanks to the kindness of charities. A joint initiative launched by local charitable organizations in Sidon targeting the Iklim al-Kharoub region, nearby Palestinian refugee camps and some border towns is feeding hundreds of needy Lebanese who gather each day for a traditional iftar meal.
Mutaa Majzoub, executive officer of the Islamic Welfare Association (ISWA), said the association would be organizing 49 iftars dedicated to orphans and the disadvantaged in Sidon, Tyre and the Palestinian camps. ISWA intends to offer over 11,000 hot meals, in addition to more than 600 food portions and fishing apparel, Majzoub added. The Ahlana (Our People) and Mouwasat (Consolation and Comfort) associations have also set out to distribute meals to disadvantaged families. In addition, the two groups are supplying families that have lost the main breadwinner with food for the holiday season.
At least three international donors are considering using a portion of reconstruction aid to finance the installation of renewable energy units in newly built residences in Southern Lebanon. A project manager from the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) energy efficiency branch - which works in coordination with the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) - declined to name the countries or organizations currently reviewing proposals, but said two embassies and one global NGO have shown interest in funding the $12 million project. "What we are doing now is trying to secure at least partial donations to install 12,000 solar thermal water-heating units, rather than electric heaters, in homes that have been destroyed in Southern villages," Anwar Nour Ali said.
Earlier this year the Order of Engineers and Architects began requiring that all newly designed houses be equipped for solar water heaters in order to obtain construction permits.
Two million residents of Lebanon, about half the population, could face health risks posed by toxic releases from Israeli bombing in the July-August war, Greenpeace warned on Thursday. "Chemical traces and dust from buildings that were destroyed have heavily contaminated the air and land," the environmental pressure group said in a report presented in Beirut on its Rainbow Warrior flagship. "In addition, bombed-out factories have caused chemical releases that could potentially affect 2 million inhabitants in the country." Greenpeace noted that Israel's attacks on the Jiyyeh power plant south of the capital had spilled between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of fuel into the sea, affecting 150 kilometers of Lebanon's coastline and part of Syria. But it quoted the European Commission as saying: "Virtually all free oil at sea or harbors and marinas has now been recovered, leaving only very small quantities at sea. "The oil spill is therefore not expected to spread further."
The General Labor Confederation (GLC) in Lebanon launched a nationwide survey on Wednesday to determine the number of workers who lost their jobs as a result of Israel's war on the country and to recommend methods of protecting the interests of workers.
Severe cases of vomiting and diarrhea were reported in the South Lebanon region of Nabatieh on Thursday. The head of the Health Department in the area, Ali Ghandour, said that a virus called the "rotary virus" caused such symptoms when vegetables were not carefully washed. Ghandour denied rumors that potable water might be polluted following the Israeli offensive against Lebanon, adding that laboratory tests showed that water were uncontaminated.
The government's acute shortage of available funds is drastically affecting the ability of the state-run National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to cover the health bills of beneficiaries, prompting the Syndicate of Hospital Owners to threaten to stop treating patients covered by the fund. The director general of the NSSF, Mohammad Karki said. "Since we cut the NSSF subscription by 40 percent four years ago, the fund has been running into financial difficulties in the maternity, health and compensation fields," Karki said.
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