POVERTY: Half Iranian urban population under poverty line says report

March 15, 2011




44.5% to 55% of Iran's urban population lives under the poverty line, according to a new report entitled 'Measurement and Economic Analysis of Urban Poverty.'
The paper was presented by three senior government researchers at a conference organized two weeks ago by the national statistics center (Markazeh amareh Iran), under the aegis of several ministries, Tehran University, and the United Nations Population Fund. It was included in a compilation published by the conference, '50 Years of Household Economics,' and made available to the general public on Wednesday, reported the Islamic Students News Agency (ISNA).
The study provides a rare statistical glimpse into the country's economic welfare, a topic generally treated with secrecy by the Ahmadinejad administration.
The authors, Mansour Kiani, Khalil Attar,and Jila Habibi, determined that at least 23.3 million city dwellers are under the poverty line and cannot subsist on their households' incomes. Iran's rural population was not included in the report.
The researchers found that the average poverty line for urban households with 3.7 members is 653,000 toumans (about $630) a month if normal goods are consumed. Tehran province had the highest poverty line, 813,000 toumans a month, while Qom province had the lowest with 523,000 toumans monthly. Using this gauge, 55% of the country's city dwellers are under the poverty line.
The average figure falls to 547,000 toumans a month if cheaper substitutes, for example chicken instead of red meat, are used. In this scenario, 44.5% of urban households live under the poverty line.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's governments, over the course of his two terms, have consistently refused to provide proper statistics concerning poverty, although the 4th Development Plan which was passed into law by the Majlis six years ago clearly requires that the Welfare Ministry issue regular figures concerning the poverty line (article 95.3).
'None of the laws state what should be done or indeed what use it is to know if the poverty line is 100,000 or 400,000 toumans,' then Welfare Minister Abdolreza Mesri told a television interviewer in January 2008. 'Calculating the poverty line is good for the country's planners, but telling the people that if you make 300,000 toumans, then you are poor, only creates mental issues for them and has no other use.'
Mesri's successor, Sadegh Mahsouli, has not been more cooperative. Mahsouli, an IRGC officer who has managed to become a multi-millionaire in between stints in various governments is known as 'Ba-Mahsouli' (roughly translated as bountiful). Before taking the reins at the Welfare Ministry, he served as Interior Minister in the previous administration and, as such, oversaw the 2009 presidential election.
On the eve of the subsidy reform vote in the Majlis, he told Jameh Jam daily last November that the poverty line did not 'have any meaning in our country,' but insisted that the bill being presented by the government would help the poor and 'make the meek more powerful.'
In February of last year, the Welfare Ministry took the curious step of denying the poverty line figure presented a week earlier by the Central Bank.
'Determining the poverty line is one of the duties of the Welfare Ministry, but this ministry has yet to fulfill its obligations,' Majlis representative Sirous Borna Boldaji, who is on the legislature's social affairs committee, told Farda News (close to Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf and not to be confused with Radio Farda). 'Previously it was said that the poverty line was 900,000 toumans, but it is currently being declared that it is 500,000 toumans. Meanwhile, the Welfare Ministry doesn't accept either one of these statistics.'
A lack of hard figures has not prevented government officials from maintaining an optimistic outlook. 'The measures taken by the ninth and tenth administrations (NB Ahmadinejad's first and second terms) have considerably reduced malnutrition and severe poverty in the country,' Seyed Abdollah Emadi, in charge of the poverty alleviation office of the Welfare Ministry, told Borna News in January of last year.
But the authors of the recent report see the outlook differently. 'The conclusions of the poverty model confirm the complexity of poverty and its institutionalization in urban society,' they write. 'It appears that poverty will continue to exist as a social and economic phenomenon, at least over the next ten years.'
http://homylafayette.blogspot.com/2011/03/half-iranian-urban-population-under.html

POVERTY: Iran: Iran's Cities a Sea of Poverty

HOMYLAFAYETTE : 04 Mar 2011
Half Iranian urban population under poverty line says report.
 Between 44.5 and 55 percent of Iran's urban population lives under the poverty line, according to a new report titled "Measurement and Economic Analysis of Urban Poverty."
The paper was presented by three senior government researchers at a conference organized two weeks ago by the national statistics center (Markazeh Amareh Iran), under the aegis of several ministries, Tehran University, and the United Nations Population Fund. It was included in a compilation published by the conference, 50 Years of Household Economics, and made available to the general public on Wednesday, reported the Islamic Students News Agency (ISNA).



The study provides a rare statistical glimpse into the country's economic welfare, a topic generally treated with secrecy by the Ahmadinejad administration.



The authors, Mansour Kiani, Khalil Attar, and Jila Habibi, determined that at least 23.3 million city dwellers are under the poverty line and cannot subsist on their households' incomes. Iran's rural population was not included in the report.
The researchers found that the average poverty line for urban households with 3.7 members is 653,000 tomans (about $630) a month if normal goods are consumed. Tehran province had the highest poverty line, 813,000 tomans a month, while Qom province had the lowest with 523,000 tomans monthly. Using this gauge, 55 percent of the country's city dwellers are under the poverty line.



The average figure falls to 547,000 tomans a month if cheaper substitutes, for example chicken instead of red meat, are used. In this scenario, 44.5 percent of urban households live under the poverty line.



President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's governments, over the course of his two terms, have consistently refused to provide proper statistics concerning poverty, although the 4th Development Plan that was passed into law by the Majles six years ago clearly requires that the Welfare Ministry regularly issue figures concerning the poverty line (article 95.3).
"None of the laws state what should be done or indeed what use it is to know if the poverty line is 100,000 or 400,000 tomans," then Welfare Minister Abdolreza Mesri told a television interviewer in January 2008. "Calculating the poverty line is good for the country's planners, but telling the people that if you make 300,000 tomans, then you are poor, only creates mental issues for them and has no other use."



Mesri's successor, Sadegh Mahsouli, has not been more cooperative. Mahsouli, a Revolutionary Guard officer who has managed to become a multimillionaire in between stints in various governments, is known as "Ba-Mahsouli" (roughly, "bountiful"). Before taking the reins at the Welfare Ministry, he served as interior minister in the previous administration and, as such, oversaw the 2009 presidential election.
On the eve of the subsidy reform vote in the Majles, he told Jameh Jam daily last November that the poverty line did not 'have any meaning in our country," but insisted that the bill being presented by the government would help the poor and "make the meek more powerful."
In February of last year, the Welfare Ministry took the curious step of denying the poverty line figure presented a week earlier by the Central Bank.
"Determining the poverty line is one of the duties of the Welfare Ministry, but this ministry has yet to fulfill its obligations," Majles representative Sirous Borna Boldaji, who is on the legislature's Social Affairs Committee, told Farda News (close to Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and not to be confused with Radio Farda). "Previously it was said that the poverty line was 900,000 tomans, but it is currently being declared that it is 500,000 tomans. Meanwhile, the Welfare Ministry doesn't accept either one of these statistics."
A lack of hard figures has not prevented government officials from maintaining an optimistic outlook. "The measures taken by the ninth and tenth administrations [Ahmadinejad's first and second terms] have considerably reduced malnutrition and severe poverty in the country," Seyed Abdollah Emadi, in charge of the poverty alleviation office of the Welfare Ministry, told Borna News in January of last year.
But the authors of the recent report see the outlook differently. "The conclusions of the poverty model confirm the complexity of poverty and its institutionalization in urban society," they write. "It appears that poverty will continue to exist as a social and economic phenomenon, at least over the next ten years."
 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/03/irans-cities-a-sea-of-poverty.html#ixzz1Fv5Gf4gu

BIOTERRORISM: WikiLeaks Show Terrorists Working Toward a Weapon of Mass Destruction

« Wearing anti-chemical and biological suits, Japanese firemen participate in an anti-terror drill at a Tokyo subway station on March 16, 2010, ahead of the 15th anniversary of the doomsday cult’s chemical weapon attacks. (JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images)
February 7, 2011
By Richard Palmer From theTrumpet.com

A summary of the latest WikiLeaks revelations on nuclear terrorism
Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are working to produce chemical, biological or radioactive weapons to attack the West, according to WikiLeaks diplomatic cables released by the Telegraph on February 1.
“Although there was a limited assessed capability for al Qaeda and other groups to acquire wmd [weapons of mass destruction], the intent was clearly present, and there were ongoing credible reports of attempts to recruit the needed expertise,” said one of the cables, a summary of North Atlantic Council meeting held on Jan. 28, 2009.

A Dirty Bomb
“A ‘dirty’ radiological ied program was assessed to be under active consideration by al Qaeda,” said the cable.
A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive device that spreads radioactive material as it explodes. This can cause lethal radiation sickness, and can contribute to cancer. However, a dirty bomb would be far more effective at spreading fear and panic than killing people.
Fear of a silent, mysterious radioactive killer combined with widespread misinformation about dirty bombs and radioactive material in general could cause mass panic in an entire city if a dirty bomb was detonated.
Such a bomb would also be a powerful economic weapon. It could costs millions, or even billions, to clean up an area contaminated by the radioactive material.
Another cable revealed that India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan warned U.S. senators Russ Feingold and Bob Casey that terrorist groups were trying to get a hold of the ingredients necessary for a dirty bomb.
India has discovered a “manifest attempt to get fissile material,” although terrorist groups have not yet been successful said Narayanan, according to a cable from June 2008.
Those terrorists have “enough physics to fabricate a crude bomb beyond a dirty bomb,” he said.

Bioweapons
Al Qaeda and other groups are also working to produce a biological weapon. Again, a biological weapon is more an instrument of terror than a means of killing people. In Japan, a terror cult tried to stage biological weapons attacks in the 1990s. They had to try several times before anyone noticed.
Nonetheless, fear of a silent and infective killer could make a biological weapon an effective tool of terror.
A cable summarizing a November 2007 arms control meeting between the United States and Japan stated that “U.S. monitoring has shown growing interest in bioterrorism methods among terrorist groups.”
The cable continued to note that “the growth of the biotech industry in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, brings many benefits, but it also makes potential biological weapons more available to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
“Al Qaeda bioterrorism plans found in Afghanistan revealed greater advances than was previously known,” stated the cable.
Cables also show that Syria and Iran are continuing to pursue a chemical weapons program.

Pakistan
The released cables also contained details of where terrorists could get a hold of chemical, biological or nuclear material. A cable released in November showed that the U.S. is worried that someone working at Pakistan’s nuclear facility could “gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon.”
Harvard’s Matthew Bunn, author of an annual report titled “Securing the Bomb,” written for the Nuclear Threat Initiative, agrees.
“The biggest concern of major production, to my mind, is theft from the places where the material is being handled in bulk—the plants that produce it, convert it to metal, fabricate it into bomb parts, and so on,” he said. “All but one of the real thefts” of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium “were insider thefts from bulk-handling facilities—that’s where you can squirrel a little bit away without the loss being detected,” he said.

Nuclear Trafficking
The cables also noted instances of individuals attempting to sell or transport nuclear material. One cable detailed that an informant stated that Russian customs officers found the element cobalt-60 in passenger railway carriages coming from Kazakhstan into Russia in 2009. Cobalt-60 could be used to make a dirty bomb, though the cable states that the cobalt was not weapons grade.
Another cable published last December by the Guardian reported an instance where a group may have successfully smuggled cesium-137, another element that could be used to make a dirty bomb, into Georgia.
The cables also gave reports of highly enriched uranium being smuggled across Uganda, possible nuclear material being seized in Burundi, an individual trying to sell “uranium plates” from Chernobyl and another trying to sell uranium bricks from an underwater wreck in the Philippines.
It is important to note that some, or even all, of these instances of nuclear smuggling could have involved fake material. Selling dangerous radioactive material is lucrative, so people will try and sell forgeries.
The cables reveal that even the laboratory of the International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea) in Austria could be a source of nuclear material for terrorists. An interagency delegation visiting Safeguards Analytic Laboratory (sal) in 2008 “was particularly struck by safety and security concerns at sal,” reported one cable.
“For example, the nuclear laboratories that handle plutonium and uranium have windows, per Austrian law, and are located in a building housing the Austria Research Center (arc),” the cable said. “There is no way to provide perimeter security to this laboratory. The lack of space and inefficient set-up of the laboratories (scattered in the arc building and the iaea-owned lab) increase the safety concerns for personnel.”

Iran
The cables also showed how Iran could get a hold of dangerous material. Officials in Uzbekistan had intercepted a railway carriage with radioactive “scrap metal” heading to Iran, according to 2007 cables.
Even more worrying was the report by American officials visiting a couple of checkpoints on the border between Turkey and Iran. It concluded: “In both posts … there is a sense that when operational capabilities are not running optimally (either because the power is out or because the capacity never existed in the first place), the border is left open to anyone who is not overtly suspicious.”
At the first border station, they found that “the power is frequently out for up to 12 hours at a time.”
Their description of the second border post—a train crossing—would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious. Here, there is no electronic scanning equipment at all. The report stated that here, “people are allowed to pass unless they do something to arouse the suspicion of the customs officer.”
The officials are so remote that their main concern is not being attacked by radical Kurdish groups. After this “they focus primarily on counternarcotics, with only cursory attention paid to countering other forms of smuggling,” stated the report.
“When asked about smuggling in the railcars, as opposed to an individual trying to smuggle things in his baggage or on his person, Kucuk [the man in charge] expressed surprise and asked why anyone would smuggle things in railcars.”
There is very little to stop Iran smuggling dangerous material in or out of Turkey.
These leaked cables show that terrorists stand a good chance of getting hold of terrifying weapons. With rogue states and jihadist groups all trying to get their hands on weapons of mass disruption, it is only a matter of time before someone succeeds.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=7944.6560.0.0

POVERTY: AFGHANISTAN: Iran fuel ban hurting the poor, says minister

 Photo: Akmal Dawi/IRIN: Rising fuel prices fuel food and medicine price hikes badly affecting the poor (file photo)

KABUL, 13 January 2011 (IRIN) - A sharp rise in fuel prices caused by a recent Iranian fuel export ban, against a backdrop of rising global fuel prices, has bumped up food and medicine prices across Afghanistan, prompting concerns about the welfare of millions of vulnerable Afghans this winter.
Petrol and diesel prices have jumped 10-15 percent (with petrol rising from 45 to 55-58 afghanis a litre) since Iran blocked hundreds of Afghan fuel tankers on its border over two weeks ago. Afghanistan gets 30-40 percent of its fuel from or via Iran, according to the Afghan Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI).
Tehran’s ambassador in Kabul, Fida Hussein Maliki, said his government wants to control fuel exports to or via Afghanistan to ensure that NATO and US military forces in Afghanistan are not using the fuel.
NATO and Afghan officials say the blocked tankers were only importing fuel for Afghan civilians.
“If the fuel was for NATO forces it would not have such an immediate and strong impact on our market,” Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, the minister of commerce and industries, told IRIN.
“Transport is the backbone of commerce in this country and when transport is expensive everything is going to be expensive,” he said.
Wheat flour, cooking oil, firewood and some medicines had become slightly more expensive since the fuel prices rose, local merchants and shopkeepers said.
“In winter demand for fuel for heating goes up. Now, not only is fuel expensive but everything else is also getting expensive,” said Haji Abdul Hai, a fuel importer.
Iran’s actions had resulted in over US$100 million losses for Afghanistan as of 10 January, the Afghanistan Trade Chambers said.
Aid agencies such as the UN World Food Programme use hauliers to import aid, and a rise in transport costs could also affect their activities.

Transit access and politics
Landlocked Afghanistan imports fuel, food, medicine and other commodities primarily over land, and relies heavily on the granting of transit access rights.
With US support, a new Afghanistan and Pakistan Trade and Transit Agreement (APTTA) was signed in November 2010 which is supposed to facilitate greater transit and trade.
The country also has a transit agreement with Iran but it is deemed “out of date”, according to MoCI officials.
“As Iran faces increased international sanctions over its nuclear programme, it tries to hit back at the international community by pressuring Afghanistan through transit bans, refugee deportations and other means,” Saifuddin Saihoon, a lecturer at Kabul University’s economy faculty, told IRIN.
Maliki, Iran’s ambassador, rejected such criticisms, saying Tehran had maintained good relations with Kabul.
Despite the presence of about 100,000 US and over 40,000 other NATO forces in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has given assurances that his country would not be used as a launch pad for an attack on Iran.
Iranian officials accuse US/NATO forces of destabilizing regional security and have called for a withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan.
But Afghan ministers are not pleased: “We cannot act at the behest of others [foreign states] and it would be unfair if they [Iranians] keep us under pressure. This is not friendly and Afghans are not satisfied,” said Ahadi, the MoCI minister, adding that trade and transit must be not abused for political purposes.
The Afghan government said it has been looking at the possibility of importing fuel from Kazakhstan and Russia. “We’re not living in an ideal environment,” said Ahadi “so we have to make every effort to mitigate the impact of the current fuel crisis.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91624

POVERTY: AFGHANISTAN: Call for help for IDPs, deportees in Helmand

  Photo: Akmal Dawi/IRIN : Displaced children are exposed to hunger, cold and diseases

KABUL, 10 January 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from insurgency-hit Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, need food assistance urgently, officials told IRIN.
About 900 displaced families in the provincial capital Lashkargah have little or no means to feed themselves and their children this winter, according to Ghulam Farouq Noorzai, director of Helmand’s refugees and returnee affairs department.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) confirmed that of the 3,800 families displaced from Nad Ali and Marjah districts during a major counterinsurgency operation in February 2010, about 900 (300 from Nad Ali and 600 from Marjah) still remain in Lashkargah.
Despite government assurances about improved security and governance in Marjah and Nad Ali, IDPs said insecurity was impeding their return. Taliban insurgents harass and assassinate people who are deemed pro-government, launch hit-and-run attacks on Afghan and foreign troops and use improvised explosive devices which often inflict disproportionate harm on civilians.
IDPs in Lashkargah have received non-food assistance (six blankets, two plastic sheets and four jerry cans per family) from the UNHCR, said spokesman Nader Farahad.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP), meanwhile, said it assisted 27,000 IDPs in Helmand Province in 2010 and that an inter-agency assessment was ongoing to gauge needs.
WFP and other UN agencies are not present in Helmand due to security restrictions but implement aid projects through local NGOs and government bodies.
From June 2009 to December 2010 over 137,000 people were displaced by armed conflict across the country. The total number of IDPs is estimated to be 335,000, including many who have been IDPs since before 2002, according to UNHCR.
Aid agencies warn that an escalation of conflict in 2011 could displace more people and lead to an increased need for protection and assistance.
Deportees from Iran
The problem in Lashkargah is being made worse by a steady influx of deportees from Iran who hail from the province or are passing through en route to their homes elsewhere, and are also seeking shelter, protection and food aid.
There are about 900,000 registered Afghan refugees in Iran as well as hundreds of thousands of unrecognized Afghan migrants. Since 2008 Iran has deported about one million illegal Afghan migrants. The UN and the Afghan government have frequently called for any deportations to take place gradually to allow conflict-hit Afghanistan to cope with the influx.
Dozens of people demonstrated in front of the Iranian embassy in Kabul on 6 January after a local TV station broadcast footage of the alleged ill-treatment of Afghan migrants by Iranian border security forces. No one at the Iranian embassy in Kabul was immediately available to comment.
Over 286,000 Afghans were expelled from Iran in 2010 - 11 percent fewer than in 2009, according to UNHCR.
“Until these people [deportees] reach their homes in Helmand or elsewhere in the country they need food, health care and other basic assistance, but we have no means to respond to their needs,” said Noorzai, head of Helmand’s refugees’ department.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91592

MALNUTRITION: Threat to wheat -- stripe (yellow) rust

An epidemic caused by a new strain of wheat fungus could cause billions of dollars in crop losses across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, according to researchers.
The wheat stripe rust — or yellow rust (Yr) — epidemic is far worse than predicted, scientists from various Middle-Eastern institutions have found.
"The situation is severe, some farmers will suffer 30–60 per cent yield loss. In the worst cases, yield loss is 100 per cent," said Maarten Van Ginkel, deputy-director general for research at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria.
Key cereal production regions are affected and in some countries, like Syria, up to 80 per cent of fields are affected, according to recent surveys. Wheat agriculture provides food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people in these regions, which already suffer from production constraints caused by drought.
"Urgent action is needed to protect wheat crops on some 50 million hectares, and research centres and industry are urged to work together to fight the disease," Mahmoud Solh, director general of ICARDA, told SciDev.Net.
The comments come as experts gather for a meeting next week (30–31 May) in St Petersburg, Russia to map out new strategies for combating wheat rust pathogens that are threatening the world's wheat supplies.
The areas most affected by the stripe rust include Iran, Iraq, Morocco and Syria, according to scientists at ICARDA. Wheat fields in Afghanistan, Algeria and Tunisia are also affected.
Yellow rust attacks all plant parts, causing most damage to the leaves. It occurs early in the season and can continue to affect the crop until maturity, if night temperatures remain sufficiently low. Because of this long cycle, damage can be severe, said Van Ginkel.
The pathogen race able to overcome a major wheat resistance gene first emerged in 2002 in South Asia but unfavourable weather conditions limited its spread until 2009, when it started re-appearing.
Van Ginkel said his team is documenting and analysing the impact of the recent outbreaks.
Newly developed, resistant varieties of wheat are already available. But national research programmes must accelerate the process of releasing these varieties for cultivation and producing and distributing enough seeds from these varieties.
Governments will have to take appropriate measures, such as planting high-yielding, resistant varieties and continually monitoring affected areas, to prevent new outbreaks next year, Solh told SciDev.Net.
Yellow rust is different from the reddish brown fungus, Ug99, which is a type of stem rust that emerged in East Africa ten years ago.
"While the Ug99 race of stem rust has received considerable global attention in recent years, ICARDA has always stressed to need to remain vigilant against stripe rust," Solh said
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/stripe-rust-threat-to-wheat-worse-than-predicted.html