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Saudi distributes 30,000 food baskets in Yemen’s Hodeidah

October 23, 2016

Riyadh, Oct 23: The King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Aid (KSRelief) on Friday distributed 30,000 food baskets to needy families in all governorates of Hodeidah in Yemen.

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An estimated 180,000 people are expected to benefit from this relief, bringing the total number of beneficiaries from such aid programs until October to 400,000 as a result of joint efforts from local and international partners.

The head of KSRelief and adviser at the royal court, Abdulllah Al-Rabeeah, said in a statement that the center is implementing many projects in coordination with the United Nations and the World Food Program for food emergency aid in 16 Yemeni governorates including in Al-Mahwiet, Omran, Albaidaa, Jouf, Aal Daleh, the capital’s municipality, Marib, Abb, Taiz, Hija, Rima, Ibn, Sanaa, Thamaar, and Lahj. The project is to distribute 134,000 food baskets by the end of October benefiting 938,000 people.

Al-Rabeeah added that the center is continuing with the distribution of food baskets and tents for those that are displaced in Jouf, Mareb and Hadrmout. Items for distribution include 21,700 food baskets, 1,064 tents and 17,710 blankets. The beneficiaries to date total 130,200.

KSRelief gives direct and indirect aid to those suffering from the present crises. Aid is either for relief and/or humanitarian purposes, and in such areas as education.

The teachers training program enables Yemenis to operate educational programs include e-teaching and long-distance teaching as 500 teachers are being trained on these educational technologies being implemented for the first time to meet teacher shortages.

Education and lessons are being recorded and will be aired on television. Most educational curricula have been made digital at all school levels with e-platforms to be aired to students with additional psychological support messages by Yemeni experts.

Al-Rabeeah also said the center is coordinating this program with the Yemeni orphan’s establishment as a local partner, and for indirect support, it is cooperating with 2,000 programs with the UNFPA in protecting women and children.

In addition, the center is working with different UN organizations to help farmers in growing crops and using fertilizer, agricultural implements, pesticides, vaccines and medicines in farming and animal husbandry.

He said it is supporting civil society organizations through the UNDP through training those unemployed, supporting small projects, and supervising psychological support through civil society organizations, where 313,000 have so far benefited.

Also hostels, rehabilitation and training centers have been set up in different Yemeni governorates with help in paying rents, helping those in need for livelihood and small projects at $31 million.

He added that the medical, environmental and water projects currently carried out in Yemen are continuing. So far, these involved treating 3,601 patients for injuries, which means that there are 150 injured people treated and cared for each month.

Al-Rabeeah said the projects of treating Yemenis in Sudan and Jordan are also continuing, with relatives accompanying patients. He added these are in addition to those injured who are treated inside Yemen in private hospitals, which stand at 1,800, and that coordination is continuing with their partners.

He stressed the fact that the medical, environmental and water projects are continuing according to need, and with local and international partners in line with world standards.

He added that the center still wants to operate the Saudi Hospital in Jija that will serve 270,000 patients, and to operate the Al-Salam Hospital in Saada to serve more than 356,332 patients with helping the Al-Jamhouri Hospital, Al-Thawara Hospital, Kuwaiti Hospital and the University Hospital, all in Sanaa. This is in addition to helping the central clinic in Sanaa, the Military Hospital and providing power and oxygen.

Al-Rabeeah said KSRelief is implementing food and medical aid program interventions for boys and girls below the age of five, pregnant women and those breastfeeding through UNICEF with the number of beneficiaries till now standing at 270,0000, in all of Yemen. The project for emergency aid (public, health, pharmaceuticals, medical apparatuses and oxygen) is being conducted with WHO with 750,0000 beneficiaries so far.

He said the Marib Public Hospital is being supported with beneficiaries standing at 74,480, as is the Al-Jamhouri Hospital in Aden, that serves 57,666. Two projects are being implemented for these hospitals to provide the necessary medical cadres and this will begin implementation on Nov. 5, in coordination with the stated partners in Aden, Hadramout, Marib, Saada and Taiz.

A project to establish a prosthetic center in Marib to serve all Yemenis is also being implemented.

As to supporting environmental sanitation, Al-Rabeeah said the center is implementing a project to support water services, and sterilization and sanitation from Medical Corps International to serve around 7,869,356 beneficiaries in Sanaa, Aden, Taiz, Lahj and Marib. He said the project to provide wheelchairs to 371 health facilities has been completed. This was in coordination with the Yemeni Ministry of Health, with the support of 97 public and private health facilities, clinics, and labs through WHO, but financed by the center.

The head of the center said this comes about through the orders of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to help the Yemeni people.

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Baghdad, Jan 4: At least five people were killed on Saturday by an airstrike on a vehicle convoy of Iraq's Shia Popular Mobilization Forces in northern Baghdad, a source in security forces told Sputnik.

Earlier in the day, the source told Sputnik about a powerful explosion in Baghdad's northern district of Taji.

"A vehicle convoy of the Popular Mobilization Forces has been attacked. According to preliminary data, five people have died. Their names have not been clarified so far," the source said.

On Friday, several senior members of the Popular Mobilization Forces, as well as commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Qasem Soleimani, were killed by a US drone attack near the Baghdad International Airport.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

Dubai, Aug 2: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Saturday that it has started operations in the first of four reactors at the Barakah nuclear power station - the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world.

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), which is building and operating the plant with Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) said in a press release that its subsidiary Nawah Energy Company "has successfully started up Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi".

That signals that Unit 1, which had fuel rods loaded in March, has achieved "criticality" - a sustained fission chain reaction.

"The start-up of Unit 1 marks the first time that the reactor safely produces heat, which is used to create steam, turning a turbine to generate electricity," said ENEC.

Barakah, which was originally scheduled to open in 2017, has been dogged by delays and is billions of dollars over budget. It has also raised myriad concerns among nuclear energy veterans who are concerned about the potential risks Barakah could visit upon the Arabian Peninsula, from an environmental catastrophe to a nuclear arms race.

Paul Dorfman, an honorary senior research fellow at the Energy Institute, University College London and founder and chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group, has criticised the Barakah reactors' "cheap and cheerful" design that he says cuts corners on safety.

Dorfman authored a report (PDF) last year detailing key safety features Barakah's reactors lack, such as a "core catcher" to literally stop the core of a reactor from breaching the containment building in the event of a meltdown. The reactors are also missing so-called Generation III Defence-In-Depth reinforcements to the containment building to shield against a radiological release resulting from a missile or fighter jet attack.

Both of these engineering features are standard on new reactors built in Europe, says Dorfman.

There have been at least 13 aerial attacks on nuclear facilities in the Middle East - more than any other region on earth.

The vulnerability of critical infrastructure in the Arabian Peninsula was further laid bare last year after Saudi Arabia's oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked by 18 drones and seven cruise missiles - an assault that temporarily knocked out more than half of the kingdom's oil production.

On Saturday, Dorfman reiterated his concern that there is no regional protocol in place to determine liability should an accident or incident at Barakah result in radioactive contamination spreading from the UAE to its neighbours. 

"Given Barakah has started up, because of all the well-rehearsed nuclear safety and security problems, it may be critically important that the Gulf states collectively evolve a Nuclear Accident Liability Convention, so that if anything does go wrong, victim states may have some sort of redress," Dorfman told Al Jazeera. 

The UAE has substantial oil and gas reserves, but it has made huge investments in developing alternative energy sources, including nuclear and solar.

Experts though have questioned why the UAE - which is bathed in sunlight and wind - has pushed ahead with nuclear energy - a far more expensive and riskier option than renewable energy sources.

When the UAE first announced Barakah in 2009, nuclear power was cheaper than solar and wind. But by 2012 - when the Emirates started breaking ground to build the reactors - solar and wind costs had plummeted dramatically.

Between 2009 and 2019, utility-scale average solar photovoltaic costs fell 89 percent and wind fell 43 percent, while nuclear jumped 26 percent, according to an analysis by the financial advisory and asset manager Lazard.

There are also concerns about the potential for Barakah to foment nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - a region rife with geopolitical fault lines and well-documented history of nuclear secrecy.

The UAE has sought to distance itself from the region's bad behaviour by agreeing not to enrich its own uranium or reprocess spent fuel. It has also signed up to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog's Additional Protocol, significantly enhancing inspection capabilities, and secured a 123 Agreement with the United States that allows bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation.

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News Network
March 6,2020

Riyadh, Mar 6: Saudi Arabia on Thursday emptied Islam's holiest site for sterilisation over fears of the new coronavirus, an unprecedented shutdown state media said will last while the year-round Umrah pilgrimage is suspended.

The kingdom halted the pilgrimage for its own citizens and residents on Wednesday, on top of restrictions announced last week on foreign pilgrims to stop the disease from spreading.

State television relayed images of an empty white-tiled area surrounding the Kaaba -- a large black cube structure inside Mecca's Grand Mosque -- which is usually packed with tens of thousands of pilgrims.

As a "precautionary measure", the area will remain closed as long as the umrah suspension lasts but prayers will be allowed inside the mosque, state-run Saudi Press Agency cited a mosque official as saying.

Additionally, the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque in the city of Medina will be closed an hour after the evening "Isha" prayer and will reopen an hour before the dawn "Fajr" prayer to allow cleaning and sterilisation, the official added.

A group of cleaners was seen scrubbing and mopping the tiles around the Kaaba, a structure draped in gold-embroidered gold cloth towards which Muslims around the world pray.

A Saudi official told news agency the decision to close the area was "unprecedented".

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia suspended the umrah for its own citizens and residents over fears of the coronavirus spreading to Islam's holiest cities.

The move came after authorities last week suspended visas for the umrah and barred citizens from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council from entering Mecca and Medina.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday declared three new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of reported infections to five.

The umrah, which refers to the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of year, attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe annually.

The decision to suspend the umrah mirrors a precautionary approach across the Gulf to cancel mass gatherings from concerts to sporting events.

It comes ahead of the holy fasting month of Ramadan starting in late April, which is a favoured period for pilgrimage.

It is unclear how the coronavirus will affect the hajj, due to start in late July.

Some 2.5 million faithful travelled to Saudi Arabia from across the world in 2019 to take part in the hajj, which is one of the five pillars of Islam as Muslim obligations are known.

The event is a massive logistical challenge for Saudi authorities, with colossal crowds cramming into relatively small holy sites, making attendees vulnerable to contagion.

Already reeling from slumping oil prices, the kingdom risks losing billions of dollars annually from religious tourism as it tightens access to the sites.

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