Libyan fallout hits Chad (OneWorld.net)

DAKAR, 29 June 2011 (IRIN) - Chadian families are facing worsening food insecurity, becoming more indebted, and selling off personal possessions as they try to cope with the loss of remittances from relatives who have returned home from Libya.

Remittances, which half of the households in Chad's western and southwestern regions of Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal used to receive, are down by 57 percent, according to a survey by NGOs Oxfam and Action Against Hunger (ACF). Households on average were sent US$220 per month.

Most families in the two regions have reduced the number of meals they eat; 70 percent are eating less nutritious foods, while just under a third are resorting to wild foods such as leaves and berries.

One in five households interviewed had sold possessions to raise money; while most said they had taken out loans to get by.

At the same time, families are struggling to feed returning members: Some 43,000 migrants have returned in trucks from Libya to Chad over the past three months, according to Craig Murphy, operations officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In Bahr el Ghazal family size has increased by as many as 13 people, according to the Oxfam/ACF survey.

"These people are going home to zones which already experience food insecurity even when there is no `crisis', said Philippe Conraud, head of humanitarian operations at Oxfam in West Africa. "They need food, water - the basics, to get by."

Chronic hunger

People in the Sahel are chronically food insecure: In 2010 some 10 million people were at risk of hunger due to prolonged drought and poor harvests; almost one in five children were chronically malnourished, and 5 percent severely, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

A minority of families are looking to new income sources: begging, sending children out to work, travelling to other towns and cities in search of work, or harvesting their crops early, according to ACF and Oxfam.

Many returnees are determined to find any work they can. Seventeen-year-old Moussa (not his real name), who just returned home to Faya, the largest city in northern Chad, after working on a farm in Libya, told IOM he would try to find work in a salt mine now that he is home

Agencies - including IOM, the World Health Organization (WHO), WFP, UNICEF, and NGOs including Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) - have been helping provide returnees with food, medicine and water at transit centres and in major destination towns such as Faya. Nutritional support, which is urgently needed, will soon be put in place, said WHO programme coordinator Thomas Karengera.

Measles

Many migrants arrived with measles, leading IRC, WHO and UNICEF to launch vaccination campaigns for children aged six months to 15 years. A national measles vaccination campaign will soon be launched to contain the spread of the disease. As of 19 June some 5,311 people had contracted the disease across 20 of Chad's 22 regions since the beginning of the year, with 63 deaths thus far, according to Chad's Health Ministry.

"We are vaccinating children as soon as they arrive at transit centres, so the disease should not spread further," Felix Leger, IRC Chad country director, told IRIN. Many migrants are arriving run-down, malnourished and dehydrated, he said, increasing their receptiveness to the disease.

Cash

Oxfam is considering cash distributions to vulnerable families but first needs to ascertain if traders have enough capacity to supply the markets.

Cash in fragile markets will not work. "We don't want to be in a situation where cash distributions cause prices to rise, so those without cash cannot afford the high prices. That could have a harmful impact," Conraud told IRIN. Only 46 percent of traders in Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal had over two months of stocks, according to their research.

Prices of some basic foods have risen: In Kanem's capital, Mao, imported wheat was 43 percent higher in April 2011 compared to April 2010; peanut oil was up by 44 percent, and rice 6 percent; millet prices had dropped.

It is still unclear how many Chadians are likely to return from Libya said IOM's Murphy, who estimates tens of thousands remain. The number of arrivals has declined in recent weeks, "but this could just be a lull," he said.

Persecution

Migrants who had recently arrived told IOM they are being driven out not only by ongoing fighting and instability but also the loss of employment and fear of being persecuted. Fighters from the Sahel were reportedly hired early on to support Col Gaddafi, leading to fears among migrants that they will be targeted.

Some migrants may plan to return to Libya as soon as fighting stops, said Murphy. This may be the reason why migrants were left stranded on the road by trucks in Zourake near the Niger border, he said.

Donors and aid agencies need to step up, warned Conraud. "If more migrants need to leave Libya, and arrive in the vulnerable Sahelian zone, then households' ability to get by will be seriously compromised. Very few actors from the international community are aware of this situation; everyone is looking at the Libyan side of the border, but more need to look at the Mali, Niger and Chad sides," he said.

*More from OneWorld

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April factory hit by Japan fallout (Reuters)

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Manufacturers saw sales slip 1.3 percent in April, as expected, as the Japanese tsunami cut off supplies to the auto industry, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday.

The median forecast of analysts surveyed by Reuters was for a 1.3 percent decline in sales at the factory gate as the economy enters a soft patch following vigorous first-quarter growth.

The decline reversed much of the 1.9 percent gain in March. Total sales at C$46.7 billion have recovered to the levels of late 2008 at the start of the recession, but remained below the July 2008 peak of C$53 billion.

The biggest drag on April sales came from a 7.8 percent drop in the transportation equipment sector. Motor vehicles and parts producers suffered steep sales declines due to supply disruptions arising from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Excluding autos, sales fell 0.5 percent.

Sales also fell significantly in the energy and aerospace sectors.

Inventories and unfilled orders were both at two-year highs, expanding 1.2 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively. New orders tumbled 10.3 percent, almost eclipsing the 11.5 percent increase in the previous month due to weaker orders for aerospace products.

(Reporting by Louise Egan and Howaida Sorour, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Germany: Hidden Fallout from Sudden Nuclear Shutdown (Time.com)

By THOMAS SCHMID / DIE WELT / WORLDCRUNCH Thomas Schmid / Die Welt / Worldcrunch – Thu Jun 2, 3:25 pm ET

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Die Welt.

BERLIN - The biggest advantage of democracy is the possibility of getting rid of governments you don't like in a peaceful way. That doesn't sound like much. Yet it sums up all the wisdom and beauty at the core of a democratic system. In a democracy, you can say A, but you can also say B, just as you can rely on the assumption that nothing has to last forever. Everything can be changed, amended, courses reversed. In short, the very life and soul of democracy is that there are always other options.

Germany's federal government is now abusing that basic rule in a scandalous way. There can be no doubt that the country needs to be looking at a smart mix of different energy sources for the future, and that developing viable alternatives to atomic power is an urgent necessity. Yet the manner in which the federal government has rushed to its decision to put a definitive stop to the use of nuclear energy by 2022 runs counter to all rules of democratic procedure. It began when, for politically motivated and tactical reasons alone, the government went back on the agreement made last fall - just seven months ago - to extend the life span of nuclear power plants. After the Japanese plant Fukushima began leaking radiation, it felt compelled to cede to public pressure by making a rapid move away from atomic power. Backtracking in the blink of an eye, the government moved so quickly partly out of fear of the Greens, and entirely without discussion or reflection. (See why the Japan nuclear crisis triggered protests in Germany.)

The Swiss Energy and Environment Minister Doris Leuthard - who had the determining vote in her government's decision not to build any more atomic power plants and to stop the use of nuclear energy by 2034 - stated: "The change needs time, but we also have time." That deliberate tone is sorely missed in Germany. From the Christian Social Union to the greenest of the republic's Greens, over the past few weeks it's as if everyone is trying to outdo everyone else in signing the death warrant on nuclear power. It's a climate that only engenders more excitability, not good sense.

Why the rush?
It is rather astonishing to see how radically the federal government has avoided examining alternative solutions on this issue. Indeed, such an evasion of a debate on the so-called Fukushima Package, which comes up for parliamentary vote on July 8, could be said to skirt legality. Hans-JUrgen Papier, a former president of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, not known for making unconsidered remarks, called the moratorium an "illegal measure" and something that "[German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, the magician, pulled out of her hat like a rabbit a couple of days after Fukushima." There was no reaction from Berlin.

The Federal Network Agency, also not known for rash pronouncements, stated that consequences of the moratorium would be "questionable in terms of the energy industry, economically inefficient and ecologically damaging" - again, no reaction from antinuclear Berlin, which steamrolled right over it. (See why Germany is abandoning nuclear power by 2022.)

And nobody really seems to be perturbed that the body created by Merkel to wind down the use of nuclear power has impertinently been assigned the name of Ethics Commission - as if the issue at stake were an ethical one, and not one of practical and technical common sense. Supporters of atomic energy comprise a tiny minority of the 17-person commission, and within the government only the most faint voices can still be heard raising a timid "But? ..." What a wonderful victory for the robust give-and-take that nurtures democracy!

And then there's Europe. When a founding E.U. member as powerful as the Federal Republic of Germany wants the continent and the rest of the world to head down a new energy path, then it would be vital not only for that member to take the matter up at the European level, but to give it time - we need time, and we have it. Germany has shown no respect for the energy policies of other E.U. countries, and particularly no trace of consideration for the East-West split that exists in Europe over nuclear power. Instead, Germany has chosen to go it alone on this issue, assuming a kind of avant-garde, "moral high ground" role that is not always going to play well elsewhere. (See pictures of nuclear reactors.)

Sustainability also means not getting caught up in the fluster of every passing pressure. It means taking time, in the clear knowledge that a "no" to nuclear power does not constitute an answer to the complex question of how to find viable future sources of energy.

Weighing the pros and cons, hearing out the opposition, putting things in longer-term perspective: we're not seeing any of this. Instead, there is an unholy alliance between those who want to "govern without hindrance" and those who would usurp the will of both Parliament and the people in favor of morally charged environmental pressure. In a rational Germany, haste on such weighty issues should not be tolerated.

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Fallout hard on Schwarzenegger

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Fallout from the revelation that former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child outside his marriage has been "very hard" for him, and the actor "is doing everything he can to take full responsibility to take all of the spotlight off his children and wife," a source close to Schwarzenegger told CNN.

"He realizes the terrible mistake he made and has a lot of work to do to repair his relationship with his family," the source said, adding that Schwarzenegger has asked people around him to not talk about his relationship with his wife and children.

"He's in touch with his family and talked to them last night and apologized to them," the source said Tuesday, noting that Schwarzenegger also spoke with Maria Shriver, his wife of 25 years.

The source told CNN the action-movie star has three movie deals and is slated to shoot a drama called "Cry Macho" this summer. However, the source said, Schwarzenegger has put the other two movie projects on hold to concentrate on his family.

"He has a lot of work to do to repair the relationships and rebuild their trust," the source said. "He will do whatever they want him to do -- give them space or be there -- to allow them to heal and get through this."

Shriver, meanwhile, joined talk show legend Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday for a taping of the Oprah Surprise Spectacular -- part of the final episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air next week.

Shriver 'not adrift,' source close to her says

As she walked on stage with longtime Oprah confidant Gayle King, thousands in Chicago's United Center jumped to their feet and erupted in applause.

"For 30 years you have bestowed the most amazing friendship on me," Shriver told Winfrey.

Shriver went on to talk about Winfrey's role in encouraging young people to pursue their education and introduced a video tribute from youths around the world.

Shriver did not talk to media backstage but appeared happy and smiled in a long, navy sequin gown throughout her on-camera appearance.

Earlier Tuesday, she released a written statement describing "a painful and heartbreaking time."

"As a mother, my concern is for the children," Shriver said. "I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment."

A source close to Shriver said Tuesday that the former NBC anchor and her children were "circling the wagons and are working through" the family crisis.

The source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Schwarzenegger was "way on the outside of the circle" and "rambling around" their huge house with none of his family around.

The revelation, published first by the Los Angeles Times, came about a week after Schwarzenegger and Shriver announced they were "amicably separating."

"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said in a statement obtained by CNN. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."

Schwarzenegger fathered the child with a household staffer, the Times article said.

The newspaper quoted the former staffer as saying she recently retired "on good terms" with the couple after working for them for 20 years.

The newspaper said it was not publishing the former staffer's name or that of her child to protect their privacy.

Schwarzenegger has provided support for the child since birth, one source told CNN.

Schwarzenegger's four children were told about their sibling only recently, with Shriver "methodically" talking to them, the source said. They were "well prepared" before it became public, the source said.

The couple have four children together between the ages of 13 and 21.

Patrick, Schwarzenegger's 17-year-old son, expressed his feelings Tuesday morning in a Twitter posting:

"some days you feel like s--t, some days you want to quit and just be normal for a bit, yet i love my family till death do us apart. #family"

The oldest child, 21-year-old Katherine, followed with her own tweet later Tuesday:

"This is definitely not easy but I appreciate your love and support as i begin to heal and move forward in life. I will always love my family!"

Privately with her children, "Maria is very much 'Don't abandon your father,'" one source said "It is very admirable to not show your children the anger and also ask your children to be supportive of their father."

After Schwarzenegger and Shriver married in 1986, they became one of America's most famous couples.

Can public figures have private lives?

He was one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, and she was a network news anchor and a member of the Kennedy family, America's storied Democratic political dynasty.

Shortly before the 2003 gubernatorial election that catapulted the former actor to political office, however, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of articles in which 16 women accused him of sexually harassing and humiliating them over a 30-year period in incidents on movie sets, at gymnasiums and elsewhere.

One of the women said that when she worked with Schwarzenegger on a movie, he pulled up her shirt to expose her breasts and took a picture and groped her on two other occasions.

The woman, Rhonda Miller, filed a lawsuit, saying Schwarzenegger and his campaign staff tried to discredit her by spreading false information about her.

Schwarzenegger said he knew nothing about Miller's allegations and said the timing of the complaints of the 16 women was "rather odd," given that no one had filed a complaint against him in the 35 years that he had lived in the United States.

Schwarzenegger issued a general apology for "behaving badly sometimes" but said many of the allegations were not true "because that's not my behavior."

Readers react to news of the scandal

Shriver took to the campaign trail to defend her husband a day after the allegations surfaced and just four days before the 2003 recall election.

"You can listen to all the negativity, and you can listen to people who have never met Arnold, or who met him for five seconds 30 years ago. Or you can listen to me," she said in a speech to a Republican women's group in Orange County.

"I wouldn't be standing here if this man weren't an A-plus human being. I wouldn't be taking my time, I wouldn't have left my job that I love, I wouldn't be doing any of this if I didn't believe in this man."

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Shriver described her husband as "an extraordinary man" and took issue with the characterization that he behaves boorishly toward women.

"He's honest, he's sensitive, he's sincere. And he is gracious with every bone in his body," she said. "I have met thousands and thousands of women who have come up to me and said they have worked with him, they have worked for him, alongside (him) and he has been an extraordinary gentleman."

Shriver said then that she was not personally hurt by the allegations.

"Nothing hurts, because I know the man that I'm married to," she said. "Has he said and done everything absolutely (right) 100% of the time? No. But I don't know anybody on the planet, male or female, who's led a perfect life.

Schwarzenegger, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Austria who gained fame as the youngest winner of the Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest, was governor until January. He has been busy in recent months reviving his acting career and signing movie deals -- including plans for another installment of his "Terminator" series.

CNN's Alan Duke, Thelma Gutierrez, Traci Tamura, Angie Massie and Megan Clifford contributed to this report.

CNN

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