Irish MP and campaigners held in pre-dawn raids

PAUL MURPHY TD

IRISH Socialist member of parliament Paul Murphy was among four people arrested yesterday morning in connection with a demonstration against water charges, during which deputy prime minister Joan Burton was trapped in her car, surrounded by angry demonstrators.

The garda arrived at Paul Murphy's home in Ballinteer, south Dublin, about 7am,  and at the same time two others were lifted.  The fourth man was picked up on his way to work. Two of the men were local councillors belonging to the Anti-Austerity Alliance.                                           

All four were detained at various Dublin Garda stations under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. It is understood they can be held for up to 24 hours. It was reported later that Paul Murphy had been released, and by late afternoon all four were freed without charges.

So why were the arrests made at all? 

It was back in November that Tánaiste(deputy prime minister) Joan Burton's car was unable to move for two hours after anti-water charge protesters surrounded it as she was leaving an event in Jobstown, south-west Dublin.

The Irish coalition government has faced protests throughout the country against the introduction of domestic water charges, an austerity measure taken as part of its plan to repay the international financial bailout it sought in 2010. Many thousands of people have taken part in marches. The campaign undoubtedly boosted Paul Murphy's election to the Dail, as part of an anti-austerity alliance, although he had previously served as an MEP.

During the Jobstown protest about a hundred surrounded the deputy PMs car, chanting "we won't pay",  and though Paul Murphy and others sat in the road, some banged on the car roof. Garda reinforcements and riot police were brought up to clear a way, and Burton was eventually driven  driven away in an unmarked police car, though not before she had been hit by a water baloon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30069525

It appears nobody was seriously injured. Only two arrests were made at the time.

Yet early on Monday morning, teams of five or six gardai went to people's homes. Paul Murphy, an elected member of parliament, was taken from his bed while still in pyjamas, as though a dangerous fugitive. At the police station he agreed to be photographed, but declined to answer questions about the Jobstown demonstration, on advice from his solicitor, he said.       

Socialist Party spokesman Dave Murphy said Paul Murphy was arrested at his home in Ballinteer, councillor Kieran Mahon was arrested at his home in Tallaght, while Mick Murphy was arrested while on his way to work. "This was done at seven in the morning, with teams of five and six gardaí [police] turning up at their house," he said.

"It is part of political policing, to try and damage the anti-water charges movement and to portray protesters as criminals."
https://www.sundayworld.com/news/td-paul-murphy-among-four-arrests-over-joan-burton-incidentThe fourth man arrested, Scott Masterson, was a member of the Socialist Republican party Eirigi.
 Éirigí’s Brian Leeson said Masterson had been arrested at his home at 7am as he prepared his two young daughters for pre-school and primary school.
“When Scott’s partner returned to the house, having earlier gone to work, there were eight Gardaí in the house along with Scott and the two children. Scott was then arrested and made to stand in handcuffs on a public road for a number of minutes before being transported to Tallaght Garda barracks,” Leeson’s statement said.
He said the arrests over the blocking of the Tánaiste’s car smacked of political policing and had been designed “to cause maximum disruption to Scott, his partner and their young family”.

http://www.thejournal.ie/arrests-joan-burton-1927993-Feb2015/

BRID SMITH

Brid Smith, a south Dublin councillor from the People Before Profits alliance, who unsuccessfully contested the Dublin South West Dail seat won by Paul Murphy, also condemned the arrests in a statement, saying Joan Burton’s visit had been a provocation for many residents.

“Joan Burton has presided over decisions that have cut social welfare for young people, deprived single parents with children over 7 of One parent Allowance, and supported legislation which has cut the wages of public sector workers. Once her appearance in Tallaght was known, it was inevitable that there would be protests.


‘Paul Murphy acted as a responsible TD in joining his constituents on these protests and should be praised for sticking with those who elected him.

‘There is no evidence that he abused Joan Burton in any way – he simply sat on the road in a peaceful protest.

‘His arrest at 7am in the morning is in sharp contrast to the manner in which tax evaders are treated. On the morning of Paul Murphy’s arrest it was reported that Irish businessmen held secret accounts in a HSBC account Switzerland to evade tax. Yet I doubt if there will be any 7 am visit to their houses to make an arrest.

‘Once again, we are seeing one law for those who represent the poor and and another for the wealthy and powerful.’

http://www.newstalk.com/Paul-Murphy-arrested-water-protests-Tanaiste-Jobstown

What might the Nabateans be able to do for us?

PATH turned into waterway.

WE had a power cut round my way which lasted most of Sunday, and was caused by heavy rain, and water getting into a sub-station. What began as seasonal April showers endes in the wettest April since records began, with swollen rivers bursting their banks, fields and racecourses flooded, a man killed trying to ford a stream in his car, thousands told to evacuate their homes to avoid floods, and ...no end to the drought alarm and hosepipe ban.

"Be proud to be dirty," said a message on the Thames' water website urging vigilance in the drought that officially covers most of England and Wales. "A dirty car shows you are doing your bit to save water. Installing a water butt ... will help new plants survive without using precious tap water." But it added that anyone needing sandbags should ask their local authority.

Today in Trafalgar Square myself and a colleague helping to guard the lions, that is controlling access to the plinth for the May Day rally, were just agreeing that we'd felt spots of rain when, lo, the sun came out, and it remained sunny and warm for the rest of the afternoon.

But thinking about the weather, which is something not even we socialists can claim to control, I could not help mentally adding this combination of scarcity and flood to some of the other contrasts mentioned by speakers - such building workers being unemployed while thousands of people need homes, and decent schools; or millions of people around the world suffering hunger when we have the ability to produce vast surpluses of food.

Seeing scenes on telly of streams in torrent and the town of Tewkesbury once more an island, taken from the air, and listening to explanations as to why this rain was still not enough, I found myself thinking about the Nabateans. Or as they are referred to in Arabic, al Anbat.

Living in the few centuries either side of BCE/CE, or old style BC/AD, in the southern parts of what are now Israel and Jordan, this Semitic people, speaking Aramean with a mix of Arabic names and words, built Petra, the "rose red city half as old as time", in the words of the poet, and are said to have controlled the trade routes between Arabia and Syria, and even the longer route between Egypt and China when it ran across their lands. But though they had once had a reputation as warriors, this control was not just a matter of taking tolls.

What the Nabateans did was to dig out underground cisterns, and carefully channel and conserve each drop of rain in what was even then a dry region, so they not only had drinking water but could keep animals and raise crops, sufficient to maintain khans, or caravanserais where travellers and caravans travelling the trade routes could rest safely overnight and be fed and watered. The Nabateans themselves had begun as nomadic pastoralists, coming via Edom from Arabia, but become great traders. The spices and incense of the East came via the Gulf to Petra, and thence to the Mediterranean coast where they could be shipped to Rome.

I have not been to Petra, with its rock-hewn temples and palaces, but in 1960 I visited Avdat, further West along the spice route, standing on a hillide in the northern Negev. Here I marvelled at the channels cut into rock which fed into cisterns, and the dams which made sure flash floods in wadis were not wasted. Below the ancient town a small group of modern Bedouin were camped, with camels, perhaps revisiting the home of their grander ancestors?

"In the mid-1950s, a research team headed by M. Evenari set up a research station near Avdat (Evenari, Shenan and Tadmor 1971). He focused on the relevance of runoff rainwater management in explaining the mechanism of the ancient agricultural features, such as: terraced wadis, channels for collecting runoff rainwater, and the enigmatic phenomenon of "Tuleilat el-Anab". Evenari showed that the runoff rainwater collection systems concentrate water from an area that is five times larger than the area in which the water actually drains.

"Another study was conducted by Y. Kedar in 1957, which also focused on the mechanism of the agriculture systems, but he studied soil management, and claimed that the ancient agriculture systems were intended to increase the accumulation of loess in wadis and create an infrastructure for agricultural activity. This theory has also been explored by Prof. E. Mazor, of the Weizmann Institute of Science."

Tuleilat el Anab are piles of stones perhaps designed to increase water flow to terraces. The name means "grape mounds". Besides evidence of goats and sheep being raised at Avdat, the archaeologists have found grape presses and wine vats. Evidently travellers who stayed at this place were well looked after.

I can't help thinking how remarkable it is, that two thousand years after the Nabateans were so skilled at using limited water supplies they could keep vineyards in the Negev(Naqb), overlooking desert, we Brits are so cackhanded we have trouble growing spuds while floodwaters sweep away drivers, as well as topsoil.

But of course there are two aspects to any society, technology and social organisation, or in another word, politics. It is one thing learning how to make best use of resources, and another being so organised to do so. Even in ancient times those civilisations which had to conserve water and irrigate crops tended to be state planned. But in modern rainy Britain, so clever in the Thatcher years, even water has been privatised.

Here's a report in the Morning Star on Tuesday, May 1, 2012 by Rory MacKinnon, Corporate Affairs Reporter:

Engineers said today that water privateers have drained Britain dry despite the recent wet weather. The GMB union, which represents utilities workers, urged MPs to call companies to account for selling off the country's reservoirs - infrastructure that could have helped ease this winter's drought.

Enviroment Agency officials warned in April that the south-west of England and Midlands were in drought, with it likely to continue at least until next year.

Yet this week's spate of flash floods are ironically a symptom of the drought, with hard-baked soil unable to soak up the sudden downpour. GMB blamed water profiteers for the crisis, saying less than one per cent of Britain's rainfall actually ended up in tanks.

Thames Water has closed 25 storage facilities in England's south-east, the union said, leaving rainfall to run off into the sea - in a region where hosepipes have been banned twice in six years.

National secretary for water Gary Smith said he could not stress enough that Britain had no shortage of water, just a shortage of competent management.

"Storage and transfer are two of the main elements of water resource management - one to move water from times of plenty to times of shortage, the other to convey water from places where it is plentiful to areas where it is in short supply."

Water was a natural monopoly, Mr Smith said, but the government insisted on a "nonsense policy" of privatisation.

"Since 1990 Thames Water has paid out £5 billion in dividends to shareholders, raised from households, that should have been used to divert water into south-east and eastern England."

He urged Parliament's environment selcet committee to call Thames Water, its competitors and regulators to account.

A Thames Water spokesman said many closed sites had stored only small amounts of treated water, while others were only treatment plants. The sites had been shut down because they weren't needed, he claimed.

I'm no water expert. But droughts or not, I can't help thinking there is something wrong when in a country like Britain we manage to have a water shortage. And however good and smart and dedicated our water engineers might be, and knowing the weather can't be planned, you do need plans and investment based on need, whereas companies are responsible to shareholders.

href="http://www.mnemotrix.com/adasr/arch.html">http://www.mnemotrix.com/adasr/arch.html

http://www.bibleplaces.com/spiceroute.htm

http://mosaic.lk.net/g-avdat.html

http://agro.biodiver.se/2010/02/what-did-the-nabateans-grow/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/01/hosepipe-ban-stay-despite-rain?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/failure-to-boost-flood-defences-exposed-as-1000-are-evacuated-7704394.html?origin=internalSearch

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/118490

http://youtu.be/WDtCa8ZgAk4

Crumbling Foundations, Missing Billions

AT a time when Iraq’s farmers are struggling over irrigation water, and people in the towns suffering power cuts and shortages, the country's largest dam is less than half full. Officials blame poor maintenance, and crumbling foundations. If the dam fails cities could be threatened with flooding.

Iraq's treasury is also light, to the tune of over $9 billion, and they say the US military and its contractors were last to see the missing billions.

Here's a report on the dam:

Iraq’s largest dam loses 60% of its water reserves

By Khayoun Saleh

Azzaman, July 26, 2010

The Mosul Dam, Iraq largest water reservoir, suffers from serious erosion of its foundations, according to a senor Electricity Ministry official. The dam, which used to hold 11 billion cubic meters of water, is less than half fall, said Musaeb al-Mudaress, the ministry’s information officer.

Mudaress made the remarks as he tried to explain to local reporters the reasons for the slump in power supplies and the worsening conditions of the national grid. The dam, which in terms of capacity is the fourth largest in the Middle East, suffers from neglect and lack of maintenance and repairs.

"The Mosul dam cannot be filled with more than 40% of its capacity" of 11 billion cubic meters of water, Mudaress said. Its hydro-electricity power plants used to produce around 320 megawatts, enough to feed the northern city of Mosul, home to nearly 2 million people.

But as the dam’s storage capacity has declined so has its power generating potential, according to Mudaress.

Today, the dame produces less than 100 megawatts and the output is erratic. The drastic decline in reserves is catastrophic to Iraqi agriculture since the water reserves were essential to farmers cultivating land on both sides of the River Tigris that bisects the country from north to south.

The dam’s plummeting reserves are not due to lowering water levels from the Tigris which originates in Turkey. They are necessary to preserve its shaky foundations and prevent its failure which is bound to inundate major cities including Mosul and Baghdad if it bursts at full capacity.
family:'Times New Roman';font-size:100%;" >ttp://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2010-07-25\kurd.htm

Meanwhile billions of dollars meant for reconstructing Iraq have gone missing, with fingers pointing out to the US Department of Defence, reports al Jazeera. .

"According to a newly released audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Pentagon was entrusted with $9.1bn after the fall of Baghdad - money that came from the sale of Iraqi oil and gas.

Out of this, nearly 95 per cent, around $8.7bn, has not been properly accounted for.

Subsequently, most of it has been at least partially tracked. However, the military failed to produce any records whatsoever for $2.6bn.

In addition, the US military continues to hold over $34mn, which it was supposed to return to the Iraqi government in 2007.

The Pentagon has blamed poor record-keeping and lax oversight. They have pledged to undergo what they call a process of archival accounting to track missing funds.

Iraqi officials say they know nothing about the missing billions".

And the Guardian takes up the story:

The US department of defence has called in forensic accountants to help track $8.1bn (£5.2bn) of $9.1bn in Iraq's oil revenue entrusted to it after the fall of Baghdad, following an official audit that revealed the money was missing. The funds were to be used for spending on reconstruction during 2004-07, a period when Iraq was under weak transitional rule.

The report was issued today by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which had previously criticised poor book-keeping by senior officials throughout the last seven years.

Iraqi officials said they knew nothing about the missing billions and had no means to find where they had been spent. "We will speak to the oil ministry finance committee tomorrow about this," said a spokesman for Iraq's oil minister.

The revelation was made against a backdrop of limited services nationwide made worse by a summer that has seen demand for electricity well exceed Iraq's meagre means to supply it through weeks of staggering heat.

The reconstruction of Iraq's worn-out infrastructure was to be a central plank of the US military's achievement. However, as combat forces steadily withdraw from the country to meet a 31 August deadline of only 50,000 troops remaining – mostly engineers and trainers – Iraqis are pointing to a dearth of the services that they were promised.

The Pentagon pledged to undergo a process of "archival accounting" to track missing funds, some of which is thought to be a result of shoddy book-keeping. However, the audit could not find any documentation to substantiate how the Pentagon spent $2.6bn. An additional $53bn has been allocated by Congress to rebuilding Iraq and the audit committee is examining whether those funds can be accounted for.

"I will need a lot of convincing," said Adnan Makhoul, a businessman from the Baghdad suburb of Karrada. "In fact I will never believe it, look around and tell me how any money has been spent."

Yunadim Kenna, a member of the Iraqi parliament's economic committee, said the massive shortfall had its roots in the heady early days after the fall of Saddam Hussein when billions of dollars of reconstruction contracts were handed out by the-then Coalition Provisional Authority.

"In the beginning, the contracts were huge, especially with the American companies and local mediators. It was not supervised well and it was very clear there was massive corruption, especially in projects related to the oil, defence and interior ministries.

"The Americans were spending wildly in the early days. We didn't know what on and there was no documentation. But after 2008, things became more organised."

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/07/201072813547747130.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/27/iraq-oil-funds-billions-missing


If the war was fought for control of oil, there is violence now in the aftermath because farmers are competing for water.
http://randompottins.blogspot.com/2010/06/when-blood-becomes-cheaper-than-water.html

Urban drinking water supplies are sometimes polluted.

Meanwhile, Iraq's electricity supply industry has still to recover from years of sanctions and war. In the capital, Baghdad, the electricity was only on five hours a day last month, according to a report today in the New York Times, which also describes people stealing electricity by illegally attaching cables to power lines.

"Iraq’s electricity problem is, of course, older than its still-uncertain embrace of a new form of government. Before Mr. Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 20 years ago this month, Iraq had the capacity to produce 9,295 megawatts of power. By 2003, after American bombings and years of international sanctions, it was half that.

"The shortages since have hobbled economic development and disrupted almost every aspect of daily life. They have transformed cities. Rumbling generators outside homes and other buildings — previously non-existent — and thickets of wires as dense as a jungle canopy have become as much a part of Iraq’s cityscapes as blast walls and checkpoints.

"Most of the generators are privately operated, and the cost — roughly $7 per ampere — has for ordinary Iraqis become too exorbitant to power anything more than a light and a television.

“I’ve never seen good electricity from the day I was born,” said Abbas Riyadh, 22, a barber in Sadr City, the impoverished Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. As he spoke, as if on cue, the lights went out.

Billions of Dollars Later

"The United States has spent $5 billion on electrical projects alone, nearly 10 percent of the $53 billion it has devoted to rebuilding Iraq, second only to what it has spent on rebuilding Iraq’s security forces. It has had some effect, but there have also been inefficiency and corruption, as there have been in projects to rebuild schools, water and sewerage systems, roads and ports.

"The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., said that one quarter of 54 reconstruction projects his office had investigated — including those providing electricity and other basic services — had not been completed or carried on by the Iraqis they were built for.

"The United States is now winding such projects down, leaving some unfinished and others, already in disrepair, in the hands of national and provincial governments that so far seem unwilling or unable to maintain and operate them adequately".

Lenin once tried to sum up socialism roughly as rule by the soviets plus electrification of the whole land. It would seem that for Iraqis, at least, imperialist-delivered "democracy" means corrupt government, consumerism for those who can afford it, but lack of basics such as clean water and electricity supplies.

"Iraq’s electrical grid remains a patchwork of old power plants and new, supplemented with makeshift and inadequate solutions. Iraq now imports 700 megawatts from Iran. When temperatures soared this summer, it paid for two electricity-generating ships from Turkey to dock near Basra, one of the most badly affected cities, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"The country’s transmission and distribution networks are aging and mismanaged by a bureaucracy as sclerotic as it was in Mr. Hussein’s era.

"The entire system is hampered by poor planning and by inter-agency rivalries that, for example, delay fuel to power plants; by a lack of conservation; by continuing terrorist attacks on electrical towers, including four in the last half of July in Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala Provinces.

"Corruption — which the special inspector general’s office called “Iraq’s ‘second insurgency’ ” in a report released on Friday — is pervasive. Mr. Farhan, the shop owner, said his landlord had bribed Ministry of Electricity workers to install the pirated cables three years ago. “He couldn’t just connect the cables himself,” he noted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world/middleeast/02electricity.html?th&emc=th

We might wonder whether there is any connection between the problems of electricity supply and the recent raids on the electricity workers' trade union. The workers might be able to take an overview of the industry and organise it for their people's needs, without favouritism, foreign bank accounts, or corruption. But in Iraq as in any other country, there are limits to bourgeois democracy

When blood becomes cheaper than water

HOW are the Iraqi people managing to rebuild their lives and country, after being 'freed' at so much cost from dictatorship? How is the country known from ancient times as the most fertile in the Middle East, and in modern times the most developed, coping with the destruction caused by war and today's environmental problems?

A recent report from the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq concluded gloomily that women had felt safer and freer under the rule of Saddam Hussein, when they could please themselves what to wear and walk down the street without being attacked. Now they suffer not just from lawlessness, but from the power given religious reactionary politicians and the encouragement given their thugs.

Another report, coinciding with the murder of Kurdish journalist Sardasht Osman, says Iraq is the most dangerous place on earth to be a journalist.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-the-most-dangerous-place-on-earth-for-journalists-1999729.html

23-year old Osman had been brave enough to suggest wrongdoing and corruption involving members of the Barzani family, one of two which between them run Iraq-Kurdistan. He was heading into the University of Salahaddin in Erbil when he was grabbed by two men and bundled into a car. His body was dumped later, still handcuffed, and with two bullet wounds to the head, near the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose leader Jalal Talabani is also president of Iraq.

But you don't need to stick your nexk out or look into the affairs of the rulers to find yourself a target for murder gangs.

Among the latest murder victims were Faisal Hassan, his wife and their two young children, killed not in some remote lawless mountain or desert warzone, but when gunmen broke into their west Baghdad home. The motive was not sectarian, political or even economic - but water-related.

Forty-year-old Hassan worked in Abu Ghraib, the city whose prison became notorious for torture first under Saddam Hussein and again under its American 'liberators'. Hassan's job might have seemed safe and peaceful enough, in the government department supervising water distribution to farmland in and around Abu Ghraib. But he was the third irrigation department employees in the city to be killed in the past three months, according to Mohammed Khudhair, a police investigater.

"All these employees had nothing to do with politics or anti-militant activities, but instead were victims of the nature of their work, which has become a risky one," he said.

In Iraq’s rural areas, the breakdown of national government with the imperialist invasion unleashed traditional tribal and clan allegiances and rivalry, sometimes encouraged by covert counter-insurgency operations launched by the occupiers. Conflict over land and water resources has been worsened by damage and problems with water supply and distribution.

''Government officials can’t control the regulation of irrigation and stop those who violate their regulations either because of corruption or because they fear for their lives. So we have to solve this issue ourselves.''
"Today, we don’t have a fully functioning government as it is totally preoccupied by the security situation and political wrangling so we don’t have a strong role to deter any possible widespread conflict," Karbala-based analyst Jaafar Moahmmed Ali said. "Besides, we have an acute shortage of water nationwide and a very bad economic situation that makes it very hard for farmers to do other work."

Tribal sheikh Ali Ismael al-Zubaidi from Diwaniya Governorate, about 200km south of Baghdad, said he had been having "tough negotiations" over water allocations with another tribe that lives upstream from his. "We have daily problems with water. They are siphoning water with huge electric water pumps and leave only drops for us," al-Zubaidi said. "Government officials can’t control the regulation of irrigation and stop those who violate their regulations either because of corruption or because they fear for their lives. So we have to solve this issue ourselves."

Al-Zubaidi said he needed to hold more meetings with the upstream tribe to resolve the water dispute "but that doesn’t mean that we can wait a long time. We will act swiftly to secure the water we need for our land even if we have to take up weapons."

Iraq was one of the more fertile countries in the region, thanks largely to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
However, in recent years water levels in the two rivers have steadily fallen due to below-average rainfall and the construction of dams upstream in neighbouring Turkey and Syria. In addition, the country’s agriculture has been hit by decades of war and insecurity, underinvestment and the unchecked felling of trees for firewood, which has increased soil salinity and caused desertification in some areas. Large tracts of once fertile agricultural land have been transformed into semi-arid desert and are causing an increasing number of sandstorms as soil-binding plants shrivel up.

In response, the government has adopted measures to regulate the amount of water being used for irrigation in each province but has faced difficulties implementing them. "The farmers didn’t adhere to the water distribution regulations. We advise them to follow the regulations this year because we cannot guarantee the amount of water we’ll have," says Mahdi al-Qaisi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Agriculture.

(thanks to IRIN and Malak Hamden , for this information, provided via Iraq Ocupation Focus).
see also:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/lament-for-a-once-lovely-waterway/?ref=earth


Homeland ruined, Refuge refused

WHILE Iraq remains neither safe nor sound, Britain and several other countries have begun forcibly repatriating refugees, both to Iraq proper and Iraq Kurdistan. Refugee officials and rights groups have urged them not to forcibly repatriate Iraqi asylum seekers, particularly members of minority communities, because of prevailing insecurity in the country.

Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway all announced deportation plans. Some 40 asylum-seekers arrived in Baghdad on 17 June – the UK’s third deportation in that week. They said they had been beaten by British border police to force them to board and then leave the plane taking them back to Baghdad. Thirty-six of the Iraqi men who were removed against their will were still being held at Baghdad airport, where they had arrived early Thursday, the BBC reported from the Iraqi capital.
It said the deportation was carried out by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) under conditions of 'complete secrecy'. The UKBA declined to comment on the specific allegations, except to say that minimum force is only used as a last resort when an individual becomes disruptive or refuses to comply. The Iraqi deportees were grabbed by the neck and beaten, one of the men, Sherwan Abdullah, told the BBC. 'They nearly kill them, they cannot breathe,' the Kurdish man reportedly said.

The UKBA has said that the deportations were based on court rulings, which found that it was safe to return people to Iraq. But the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, cautioned against deportations in a statement from Geneva, saying that violence and human rights violations are still prevalent in parts of Iraq.

“Our position and advice to governments is that Iraqi asylum applicants originating from Iraq's governorates of Baghdad, Diyala, Ninewa and Salah-al-Din, as well as from Kirkuk province, should continue to benefit from international protection,” Melissa Fleming, a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said at a press briefing on 8 June.

“Our position reflects the volatile security situation and the still high level of prevailing violence, security incidents, and human rights violations taking place in these parts of Iraq,” she said.

Iraqi minorities - including Christians of various denominations, Yazidis and the Shabak – living in third countries are particularly fearful of any forced returns. A Chaldean Christian Iraqi refugee who has lived in the Netherlands since 2006 said he feared being singled out for deportation because of the many attacks against his community in Iraq. "Kidnappings and politically motivated killings continue to take place in what seems to be an attempt to resettle or eradicate Iraq's indigenous population," he said.

He is one of more than half a million Iraqi Christians who have fled since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. According to the US-based Brookings Institution, an estimated 500,000 Christians remain in Iraq since numbering between 1 million and 1.4 million before 2003.

“Christians continue to be targeted and there is no protection from the Iraqi authorities,” said Dr Ghazi Rahho, a Christian Iraqi who fled the country several years ago and now works as a professor in Jordan.

Rahho’s cousin, Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, a leading Christian authority in Iraq, was kidnapped and killed in February 2008, an incident that led to some 12,000 Christians fleeing Mosul, about 400km northwest of Baghdad. “To date, kidnappings and assassinations are taking place. And other tactics are used to terrorize Christians. Our churches, for instance, are being bombed," said Rahho.

According to an April 2010 Amnesty International (AI) report, more than 100 people were killed between mid-July and mid-September 2009 in attacks targeting Christians, Sabean-Mandaeans, Yazidis, Turkoman Shias, Shabaks and Kaka'is.

AI has called on the international community to “end all forcible returns to any part of Iraq; any return of rejected asylum-seekers should only take place when the security situation in the whole country has stabilized.”

Iraqis are the second largest refugee group in the world, according to UNHCR's 2009 Global Trends report, with an estimated 1.8 million seeking refuge primarily in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey. The report, released in advance of World Refugee Day on 20 June, said voluntary repatriation worldwide in 2009 was the lowest for 20 years, with around 251,500 returns, of which only 38,000 were Iraqi.

http://www.unhcr.org/4c0e33e94fc.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10352966.stm

Deja Vu, Veolia

MUCH to my surprise today, along with a magazine to which I subscribe, and the usual junk mail and charity missives, the postman brought a letter from Veolia headed "For the attention of the homeowner". I'm not a homeowner, but the letter appeared to be offering important advice about my water supplies, and what with the weather...plus they generously enclosed a voucher promising "£15 off Home emergency products bought to you by HomeServe".

Thing is, mind, I was not aware until this letter came that I was doing any business with Veolia. I've had 'phone calls asking me whether I'd considered changing my electrity supplier, or if I would like to switch back to British Telecom , but I must have missed the call asking if I minded who took over my water supply.

Or that I wanted to. I know they seem to be expanding lately. I've seen their vans about. Their website tells me that "With a presence in this country since the mid-1960s, we are one of the only UK companies to operate across the entire range of environmental services and offer customers comprehensive and tailored solutions".

http://www.veolia.co.uk/

Oh no, not more solutions! Besides a company offering clean water should not be coming up with solutions. But elsewhere we find they also face problems:

Dubai: Two French transport giants Veolia and Alstom could face trial in France over their involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail project that aims to link the eastern and western parts of Occupied Jerusalem to Jewish colonies in the West Bank.

Campaigners against the two companies have won a major step in a legal battle in France that they see as necessary to curb Israel's expansion in occupied Palestine, and set a precedent for companies in Europe eyeing Israeli contracts in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/veolia-alstom-in-legal-muddle-1.557709

And here's an item from a couple of years ago:

At the entrance of the Tovlan landfill, located beside the Jordan River in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), three flags fly proudly: those of Israel, France and the European company, Veolia. Through its Onyx subsidiary, Veolia, which is also constructing the Jerusalem light rail project on occupied Palestinian land, is managing the Tovlan landfill. In a 2004 year report on sustainable development, Veolia announced that its subsidiary Onyx brought "the new Tovlan landfill into service in Israel." Prior to that time, Tovlan was an old, unsanitary waste dump.

Veolia has a history of juggling with names. In 2005 Onyx became Veolia Environmental Services, also operating in Israel under the name TMM Onyx. Research by the Coalition of Women for Peace confirms that the Tovlan landfill is owned and operated by TMM, a company that is 100 percent owned by Veolia Environmental Services Israel.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10027.shtml

The companies involved in controversial work in the West Bank may not be interested in political and moral arguments, but they do have to take notice when investors pull out or if they are threatened with losing contracts in other countries.

With all that worry, on top of not knowing if it is a French or UK company, or if Veolia is Onyx, it is impressive to think they have time to concern themselves with my problems. But as their letter says, worryingly,

"Your underground water supply pipe brings fresh water into your home.

If you are a homeowner you are generally responsible for the repair and maintenance of this pipe.

A 5 metre segment of pipe can cost £620 to replace."

Looking out at the snow-covered ground outside that is worrying. Or would be if I was the homeowner.

But it is all a bit familiar.

Because, as those of you who read my blog back in 2005 may remember, I went on about similar communications received back then, by me and my neighbours, telling us that homeowners were responsible for water supply pipes, our supplies might be cut off, and how expensive it would be to pay for special digging equipment, and offering us insurance cover.

I was worried that some of my elderly neighbours might hasten to pay unnecessarily, but they reassured me that they had binned the letter straight away. I didn't bin mine, but sent a copy to my MP. He made enquiries. It appeared that although the letter resembled a water bill, and was headed with the water company's logo, the company anxious to provide people with insurance cover was Home Service(GB) Ltd.

OFWAT, the regulatory body for the water industry, had received a number of complaints about Home Service's advertising. An OFWAT spokesperson said: "Technically the leaflets are correect in that there isn't a statutory responsibility on the water companies to repair these pipes, but the figures show that in an overwhelming number of cases last year the water company did just that.

"There were almost 53,000 repairs last year - when you think that there are more than 20m households connected to a water main, this is not a lot. More than 6,000 pipes were replaced and in half of those cases the water company picked up the bill.

"One of the things we are very concerned about is the fact that these leaflets are designed to look like water bills. We recently wrote to Home Service to demand they are all redesigned so they don't look like bills in future".

That was on 16 February, 2005. Then in June that year I received another communication, still bearing the water company's logo. It had the water company's address as well. Entitled "PLUMBING AND DRAINS; ADVICE ABOUT YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES". the leaflet warned "PLUMBERS MAY GO AWAY IN SUMMER -PLUMBING EMERGENCIES DON'T". It was signed by someone called Lisa Bridge, Customer Relations Manager for Homeserve. Judging from code numbers this was the same company as Home Service.

Then in November I heard from Ms.Bridge again.

http://randompottins.blogspot.com/2005/11/watch-your-water.html

This much has changed. The latest letter is signed by one Richard Brimble, as "Customer Relations Director, Veolia Water Three Valleys".

A PS explains "Three Valleys Water is now known as Veolia Water Three Valleys".

Well, so long as we know.

All I can say for now is "Plus ca change, et plus, c'est la meme chose! Pardon my French.

Watch your water

Some companies are very persistent when after your money. At the beginning of this year I received what looked like a water bill, complete with a form at the bottom authorising Direct Debit. It came in an envelope with the water company's logo, and there was a similar looking envelope enclosed to send your payment form in.

Looking closer I saw the words "THIS DOES NOT FORM PART OF YOUR WATER BILL" at the top of the letter. But its main burden seemed a bit worrying. Dealing with the underground external water supply pipe into my home, it warned in block capitals:


"HOMEOWNERS ARE LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS PIPE FROM THE STOP TAP IN THE ROAD TO THEIR HOME.

IF THIS PIPE BURSTS OR SPRINGS A LEAK, IT IS THE HOMEOWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY TO SORT IT OUT.

COST OF A PLUMBER'S CALL-OUT AND REPAIR BILL ARE NOT COVERED BY MOST STANDARD HOME INSURANCE POLICIES FOR WEAR AND TEAR

60% OF PLUMBERS DO NOT PROVIDE AN EMERGENCY SERVICE ".

On top of the mess and inconveniance of a water supply leak, it said the repair job would usually involve some digging, with the "correct equipment" (not calling a spade a spade) and it might be hard to find a specialist engineer in an emergency. For just £15.99 the company offered to cover me for repairs, give me access to a specialised engineer , even put £200 towards hotel accomodation if my place was uninhabitable for more than 48 hours. Sounds reasonable.

To be honest, I wasn't that worried by the letter. For a start it was not addressed to me, by name, probably because I don't pay the water bill directly, and I'm not a homeowner. I did wonder about the older people on my block, and how many had been anxiously reaching for their pens to pay without putting on their glasses to read the small print. "No, we just binned it", a neighbour reassured me.

But instead of binning mine, I'd posted a copy to my MP. He made enquiries. From these I learned that although the letter resembled a water bill, and was headed with the water company's logo, the company anxious to provide people with insurance cover is Home Service(GB) Ltd, an independent company that has an arrangement with a number of water companies.

Apparently the water regulator OFWAT had a number of complaints about Home Service's advertising. An OFWAT spokesperson said:

"Technically the leaflets are correect in that there isn't a statutory responsibility on the water companies to repair these pipes, but the figures show that in an overwhelming number of cases last year the water company did just that.

"There were almost 53,000 repairs last year - when you think that there are more than 20m households connected to a water main, this is not a lot. More than 6,000 pipes were replaced and in half of those cases the water company picked up the bill.

"One of the things we are very concerned about is the fact that these leaflets are designed to look like water bills. We recently wrote to Home Service to demand they are all redesigned so they don't look like bills in future".

OFWAT and the Adertising Standards Authority had received an assurance from Home Service that it would redesign its flyers not to look like bills.

That was on 16 February.

In June I received another communication not unlike the first, still bearing the water company's logo, but this time instead of the disclaimer about not being part of my water bill, it had the water company's address as well.

Entitled "PLUMBING AND DRAINS; ADVICE ABOUT YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES". the leaflet warned "PLUMBERS MAY GO AWAY IN SUMMER -PLUMBING EMERGENCIES DON'T". It was signed by someone called Lisa Bridge, Customer Relations Manager for Homeserve. Judging from code numbers this is the same company as Home Service.

In her anxiety as to what would happen to my water supply and home in an emergency, Ms. Bridge has not been put off by my ignoring this communication, for this month I have heard from her again. "Dear homeowner", she begins, though that is something I've never been, telling me that I'm reponsible for all plumbing and drainage within my home, and "all drainage within the boundary of your property".

The cost of cover seems to have fluctuated. The first letter offered a deal working out £3.99 a quarter, by June it had risen to £5.99 a month, and now it is slightly down at £5.40 a month.
Not that I'm worried. But I note that the latest letter has a PS: "Although Homeserve is not regulated by OFWAT there are guaranteed standards of service which are rigorously adhered to and which are available on request".

I guess I'm a bit of a fusspot going on about something that does not even apply to me, but if you have had one of these letters and you are a homeowner you might be pleased to hear that according to OFWAT you probably need not really worry about it. More generally, we might remark the benevolence of this company that is so worried about us it is sending out invitations to all and sundry, whether or not we need them, to pay for its services. I don't remember getting such loving care and attention before our water was privatised.