あの「ジェイコム男」がオリックス株主９位に

あの「ジェイコム男」がオリックス株主９位に

１０７万株保有、時価総額６０億円
Ｂ・Ｎ・Ｆ氏（クリックで拡大）

　２００５年１２月、みずほ証券がジェイコム株を大量に誤発注した際、１０分間で２２億円の利益をあげた、あの「ジェイコム男」ことＢ・Ｎ・Ｆ氏（本名非公表、３１）が、オリックスの株式を大量に購入。３月末時点で第９位の大株主に躍り出ていたことが５日までに分かった。同社が全株主に発送した株主総会招集通知の中に、本名が記載されていたのだ。

　通知書によると、Ｂ・Ｎ・Ｆ氏は公開済みのオリックス株１０７万株を保有。時価総額は６０億円（４日終値）に達し、信託銀行や外資系投資銀行を除くと、みずほ銀行、日本生命につぐ第３位。個人株主では、約３万人が保有する同社株の３分の１を１人で占める。昨年上半期までの有価証券報告書には名前がないことから、昨年１０月から今年３月の間に購入したことになる。現在も保有しているかは不明だ。

　Ｂ・Ｎ・Ｆ氏は有名私大を中退しニートだった０５年にジェイコム株で大もうけした。都内の高級マンション最上階の１室で億単位のデイトレードを繰り返し、総資産は２００億円を突破。昨年秋には、東京・秋葉原駅前の商業ビルを“１棟買い”して話題となった。

　その後はメディアへの露出もなかった。予期せぬ“再登場”に大手証券アナリストは「オリックスは０５年にマンション分譲大手の大京を傘下に収め、不動産向け投融資を大口化している。不動産投資に進出したＢ・Ｎ・Ｆ氏は、大株主になることで経営に関与し、ノウハウや情報収集を狙うのでは」と推測する。

　“爆騰”にかけたとみる証券マンもいる。「昨年末、日本郵政が『かんぽの宿』をオリックスに一括売却すると報じられ、買ったのでは。今年２月には、ゆうちょ銀行のオリックス株大量買い増しも報じられたし」。

　同株は昨秋のリーマンショック以降、海外投資家の売り注文が殺到。今年２月には１７０７円まで売り込まれた。単純な投資であって、この時期に拾い集めたとして現時点で含み益は実に３０億円。一般投資家とはスケールが違い過ぎる。

　ぜひ本人を直撃したいところだが、取材依頼に返答はなし。オリックス社長室も「個別の株主様に関してお話しすることはありません」としており、真相はヤブの中だ。

ZAKZAK 2009/06/05

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Tim Boxer: Coming to America

by Tim Boxer
Special to the Jewish Week

Photo by Tim Boxer:
Jerry Seinfeld and neuroscientist Eric Kandel were among five celebrities who received Ellis Island awards.

As Jerry Seinfeld's maternal grandparents emigrated from Syria, and Nobel laureate Eric Kandel came from Vienna, they were among five notables honored at the 8th annual Ellis Island Family Heritage Awards.

Waiting in the historic Great Hall of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Jerry cracked, "We got the immigrants' experience just by sitting on these wooden benches."

The awards are presented by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation to outstanding immigrants or their descendants.

Jerry's maternal grandmother, Salha Hasseni, came from Aleppo, Syria. Jerry was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Massapequa, and lives in Manhattan with his wife and three children.

Candice Bergen,
who hosted the program, said that Jerry described Massapequa as "a Native Indian word for 'close to the mall.'"

Dr. Kandel was born in Vienna where his father owned a toy store. In November 1938, two days after his ninth birthday, Kristallnacht scorched Jewish life.

"I am a Jew," Kandel said. "A kid from my school told me, 'My father said not to talk to you again.' No one from my class ever talked to me again."

The next year Kandel was sent to New York ahead of his parents. He enrolled as a scholarship student at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, went on to Erasmus High School and then got a scholarship to Harvard to major in history and literature.

"I was interested in history because I wanted to understand how a highly civilized nation could one day turn to kill Jews."

Kandel wanted to switch to psychoanalysis but his wife, Denise Burstyn, convinced him to pursue brain research. "You don't have money, I don't have money," he protested.

"Money is of no significance," she said.

"She never uttered those words again," Kandel noted, smiling broadly.

At New York University Medical School, Kandel immersed himself in the biology of the mind. His research in the molecular basis of memory storage earned him a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in medicine. Currently he's a professor at Columbia University.

Kandel told me how he grew up in a "modified" Orthodox home where his parents kept kosher. Today he belongs to the Conservative Synagogue of Riverdale. His daughter Minouche, a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School, is a public interest lawyer in San Francisco, working with abused women.

"Minouche and her husband Rick are committed to Judaism," Kandel said. "They keep a kosher home and send their two kids to Brandeis parochial school."

Kandel's son Paul, a portfolio manager, and daughter-in-law Emily, are members of Kol Ami Temple in White Plains, N.Y., where their two daughters attended Hebrew school and had their bat mitzvahs.

Media superstar Joe Namath, who led the underdog New York Jets to a legendary upset in Super Bowl III, was also honored. His father, Janos Nemet emigrated from Hungary in 1920.

After the rise of Fidel Castro, two-year-old Gloria Fajardo and her family escaped to Miami. Emilio Esfahan, 13, left Cuba for Madrid and then Miami. At age 18 Gloria, now a singer, started to work for Emilio, fronting his Miami Sound Machine. They married after she graduated from the University of Miami.

Emilio rocketed Gloria Esfahan to superstardom in the music world, with 24 albums and seven Grammy Awards to her credit. Emilio has written and produced for such other stars as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Ricky Martin.

"No matter where our forefathers came from," Gloria said, "they were running away from something. We came to the only country where we can realize our dreams."

After the ceremony Kandel turned to Esfahan. "Gloria does all the talking but you take care of all the checks."

"No," Esfahan shot back. "She does the checks too."

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Retail Therapy

By Sarah Birke
Photos Adel Samara

Retail Therapy

Syria is experiencing a huge rise in the number of shopping malls, changing the face of the country’s retail market. The arrival of international brands, more local spending by affluent Syrians and a rise in investment dollars flowing in from the Gulf is fuelling growth in the retail sector despite a global economic downturn.

Last year the volume of gross leasable area (GLA) of retail space in Damascus was estimated at 55,000 square metres (sqm) by Retail International, a shopping centre consultancy firm. The British company, which provides specialist coverage of the Middle East, currently estimates this figure has almost doubled over the past 12 months and now sits at 100,000sqm.

“I don’t have a figure for the whole of Syria, but for Damascus I would say it is currently around 100,000 square metres,” Simon Thomson, head of Retail International, said. “Syria is still an emerging market compared to Jordan and the Gulf states, but its great potential for all involved in the retail industry has been recognised.”

More on the way

The latest addition to the country’s shopping mall scene is the Shahba Mall, the country’s largest and a joint venture between the Aleppo-based Sabbagh Group and Jordan’s Al Kurdi Group. Located on the highway heading to Turkey from Aleppo, the SYP 2.4bn (USD 50m) mixed-use development includes shops, restaurants, a hotel, cinema and French hypermarket Carrefour, the international chain’s first store to open in Syria. The mall’s total built-up area is some 80,000sqm.

Projects underway in Damascus include a shopping centre at the Eighth Gate complex, a mixed-use development under construction by Dubai-based firm Emaar, and the Yafour Gardens project, a 100sqm complex located on the highway to Beirut. Also due to open on the outskirts of Damascus in 2010 is Sabboura, an ambitious 200sqm development owned by the United Arab Emirates’ Majid Al Futtaim Group, and Damascus Hills, located on the highway to Homs. Both developments will provide retail space. The Qatar Investment Authority is also reported to be investing in building mixed-use areas in Lattakia and Damascus, while the Syria-based Toumeh International recently signed off on a tourism complex which will contain a 6,300sqm shopping mall to be built in the upmarket Damascus suburb of Kafer Suseh.

“The market is exploding in Syria,” Muhanned al-Mallah, general manager of Damasquino Mall, a 24,000sqm shopping complex which opened in Kafer Suseh in February, said. “There has been no issue with retailers pulling out due to the global credit crisis because Syria is such a new market. And shoppers are still spending – during our first weeks 3,000 people visited the centre every day.”

Alongside Damasquino, which launched the international brands Nike, Lacoste and Clarks in Syria, sits the 8,000sqm Cham City Center mall. Rounding out the capital’s line-up of shopping malls is the 35,000sqm Town Center, located on the Syria-Jordan highway south of the capital, Skiland, an entertainment and shopping venue on the Airport Road and the Queen Centre mall in Mezzeh. The city’s most upscale shopping precinct is located downtown on the Damascus Boulevard complex, attached to the Four Seasons Hotel.

Further out of the city, Trans Mall, operated by Aswaq Syria, the same group which owns Damasquino Mall, had its soft opening in December 2008. Numerous other proposed mixed-used developments around the country also plan to incorporate shopping centres.

Demand for international brands

What is the secret to Syria’s success? The loosening of government controls on international brands since 2003 is one, said Mallah. “People are keen to shop at international brand stores and these companies in turn are only willing to open in centres with facilities such as security and parking.”

A second reason has been the high price of oil over the past couple of years, filling the pockets of Arab investors. Thomson said investors in oil-rich states have increasingly looked around the region for investment opportunities at a time when the Syrian government has been working hard to increase the amount of foreign direct investment in the country.

“There were surplus funds from the wealthy Gulf states that enabled the major developers and retail franchisees to look further afield to new markets, of which Syria was one,” he said.

So far the shopping centres are not changing the way Syrians shop; the traditional souks are still bustling with Syrians keen to pick up a bargain. Those involved with the new malls say they do not pose a threat to the country’s souks because they target a wealthier clientele.

“The reason is that the shoppers we target used to go to Lebanon to shop,” Mallah said. “We target the middle-to upper-middle-class shoppers in the 14-to-40 age range who don’t usually go to the souks.”

Diversification and experience
Shopping Mall Space
Abu Dhabi 655,000
Amman 200,000
Beirut 550,000
Cairo 600,000
Damascus 100,000
Doha 520,000
Dubai 2.5m
Jeddah 1.9m
Kuwait City 500,000
Manama 590,000
Muscat 300,000
Riyadh 1.2m

* figures in square metres Source: Retail International

Syria’s retail sector is not without challenges. A lack of diversification of brands in shopping centres may limit future growth. Lina, a teacher in Damascus, still prefers to shop abroad. “I buy all my clothes when I visit my husband in Abu Dhabi because the shopping centres here don’t offer the range of shops you find over there,” she said.

How many malls the country can support is also up for question – the 100,000sqm of mall space in Damascus is still far below the 200,000sqm found in neighbouring Amman, the 600,000sqm on offer in Cairo or the 1.3m sqm available in Dubai.

Another challenge for the sector is a lack of retail management expertise in the local market. “I worked in the UAE and did many courses there,” Mallah said. “I then came back to work in Syria but it is noticeable that there is little local expertise.”

Mallah said Syrian companies will have to invest in retail management courses if they are to compete in the country’s expanding investment market with firms from the Gulf.

And while laws have been loosened, international brands still face high taxes and myriad regulations when opening in Syria. The recent dispute as to whether Carrefour supermarket can trade under its own name or will have to be called Shahba Mall Hypermarket is illustrative of what deters foreign companies from launching in Syria.

“You have to know shopping centres and be Syrian to be successful here,” Mallah said. “The complex rules on everything from tax to import regulations mean firms basically need a Syrian partner.”

Despite the challenges, foreign retail companies are beginning to look more seriously at Syria. And Syria is beginning to see the advantages shopping centres bring to the economy – a report last year by regional business publication Executive estimated that Syria’s retail sector employs just over a quarter (27 percent) of the workforce and accounts for a staggering 17 percent of GDP.

“It takes time to build a good shopping centre,” Mallah said. “But in five years time I predict Syria will have at least another three large centres and other smaller malls.”

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No Time For Play

By Fay Ferguson
Photos Carole al-Farah

No Time to Play

Crouched down on the dirty floor of a footbridge crossing Damascus’s Al-Thawra Street, Nadir, just seven years old, stares blankly at the stall of pistachio and coconut sweets in front of him. Sabah, his nine-year-old sister, pulls restlessly at his threadbare sandals, before goading him into a fight which eventually turns into a fit of giggles. For a split second the children take no notice of the constant stream of people shuffling past, until some money falls in Nadir’s lap – a sharp reminder of the job at hand – and it’s back to business as usual.

“Sometimes I don’t mind working because I like to have a free life and play,” Nadir says. “We come here every day, but if it gets really cold, Dad tells us to come home.”

Nadir and Sabah have been selling cakes on Thawra’s footbridges from 10 o’clock in the morning until 11 o’clock at night for the past two years, along with their two teenage brothers, Hussein, 12, and Alaa’, 14. The children, whose cousins also work on the streets in Damascus, smoothly tell curious passers-by that their mother “is looking after the baby” and their father “needs an operation for his eyes”.

“When we saw Mum and Dad struggle we decided to go and earn money for them,” Sabah said, adding that she and Nadir have both worked since the age of five. Sabah also claimed that she and her brothers earn a combined total of some SYP 6,000 (USD 126) each day – cash which they hand over to their parents, who do no not work – in return for SYP 15 (USD 0.30) in ‘pocket money’ the next morning.

“Dad taught me to count, but I also want to learn how to read and write,” Sabah said. “Dad said I could go to school, but not while we’re living in Damascus. He said it’s better if I go to school when we move back to Aleppo because that’s where we come from.”

Limited information

Accurate estimates on the number of children involved in child labour in Syria are hard to come by. The United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) identifies three areas where child labour is present – in industry, agriculture and in Nadir and Sabah’s case, the informal sector. The last in-depth analysis carried out by the agency on the issue, however, was seven years ago. Even then, the report only looked at child workers aged between 10 and 17 and was based on data collected in 2000 for a broader internal migration survey.

More recent, but limited information is found in a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) conducted by UNICEF, Syria’s State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Health in 2006. The survey estimated that at least 4 percent of 5-14 year olds – 29,309 children in total – were involved in child labour, the majority of whom were under the age of 11. The findings come despite new education and labour laws, amended in 2002 and 2004 respectively, which make it compulsory for every child to attend school until the age of 15 and illegal to employ anyone under that age.

The report also found that Hama and Deir ez-Zor had the highest rates of child labour at 12.5 percent and 8.7 percent of their child populations, while Damascus was estimated to have the second lowest rate of child labour at 1.3 percent (2,102 children), behind Suweida at 1.2 percent (400 children).

On the rise

No Time to PlayDespite the lack of up-to-date statistics, local observers claim in recent years the number of children being forced into child labour – be it on the streets or in the industrial and agricultural sectors – has grown considerably. They attribute this to the impact of the country’s transition to a new social market economy, saying growing numbers of families are struggling to adapt to the new climate and to stay above the poverty line.

Interviews conducted by Syria Today with children working in Damascus’s Old City back up these claims. Most of the children interviewed had moved with their families to the capital to work in the past two years from either Idleb or Qamishle. The interviewees also estimated that the number of children now working in the Old City – either as luggage porters or salespeople – has increased from just 20 to some 300 in the past couple of years.

“We do seem to see more children working on the streets, but this is based on anecdotal information because we have carried out no new studies on it,” UNICEF Representative Salma Kahale said. “We’ve had economic reforms, but in parallel there needs to be the development of a social protection system, which is complicated and takes a while. It needs to be put in place as soon as possible to prevent these families from turning to child labour.”

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour also acknowledges that child labour is on the rise. “The problem started when huge numbers of Iraqi refugees came to Syria after the invasion of Iraq in 2003,” Maher Rezk, director of social services at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, said. “The influx caused prices to increase and left many families struggling to cope. The drought has also caused problems, it has forced many families living in the east to move to the cities.”

Flaws in the system

While an in-depth study is needed to identify the exact causes of the growing number of child workers, the mechanisms to enforce the relevant laws need to be improved.

Omar, 13, sells balloons in Damascus’s Old City and claims to make SYP 600 (USD 12.60) per day. He also has a 12-year-old sister who works as a tailor in a factory in the Damascus countryside. “Dad makes us work because we need to save up for when he goes to do his military service,” he said.

Children working in the Old City interviewed by Syria Today said they regularly bribe the police with roughly SYP 200 (USD 4.20) each. One day last month, however, the police refused the usual small bribe and Omar and six other children were detained and held in custody for two days.

“I was scared and upset, I wanted Mum and Dad,” Omar said shyly. “When I was allowed to go, I had to promise that I wouldn’t sell balloons again.”

Despite being detained, Omar is back on the streets selling balloons.

Both Rezk and Kahale said that when it comes to punishing parents who force their children to work, the system is weak. Whether the child is working in the formal or informal sector, the ministry’s scope for action is restricted by social norms and old laws which limit intervention in family affairs.

“Unfortunately, Syria’s laws still don’t really allow for an independent body to take a child away from a parent who is not fulfilling his duty or to punish a parent,” Kahale said. “There are some things in the law, but often they aren’t implemented because the systems aren’t in place to ensure the child is properly cared for. Taking a child away from a parent is one thing, but then what do you do? Syria doesn’t have shelters and even if it did it lacks a reintegration plan. The whole system is underdeveloped.”

Complicated legal environment

Ensuring child labour laws apply to children forced to work in the informal sector is also a pressing issue. For now, vulnerable children such as Ahmad, Nadir and Sabah continue to fall outside labour protection laws because the system does not identify them as cases of forced labour. Instead, they are viewed as ‘beggars’ and subject to different legislation.

“Our children’s rights laws deal with the problem of beggars, but the labour law deals with child labour,” Rezk said. “The Ministry of Labour can’t deal with children working on the streets because there’s no employer or actual place of work. We can’t consider the father to be an employer because that would be legalising the problem.”

As such, those running profitable child labour rackets on the streets, either via small family businesses or interconnected mafia-esque networks, are able to operate, by and large, unpunished.

Moreover, in cases where there is a clear law to punish child exploitation, critics argue that penalties are now so outdated they do little to discourage offenders. As it stands, employers in the formal labour sector found guilty of employing children under the age of 15 are usually only fined SYP 1,000 (USD 21). The ministry, which says it regularly sends inspectors unannounced to visit factories suspected of using child labour, acknowledges the problem.

“The problem is that the law is 50 years old so the fine is really low,” Rezk said. “We’re working on legislative reform and there’s a whole chapter about child labour, so new penalties will be implemented.”

Kahale said UNICEF plans to carry out a national study on child labour in Syria this year to better understand the conditions of children working in the industry and the issues fuelling it. She added that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, UNICEF and the International Labour Organization are also finalising plans for a three-year project which will work towards eliminating the worst forms of child labour in Syria’s informal sector, agriculture and industry.

Kahale acknowledged, however, that it could be a number of years before decisive action to combat the issue is taken. “Changing the system will take time, which is really of the essence when you’re talking about an industry that can severely impact on a child’s life,” she said.

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It’s a Kind of Magic

By Dania Akkad
Photo Fadi al-Hamwi

It's a Kind of MagicThe stall, tucked away in the labyrinth of Souk Hamidiyeh, is crammed with fur pelts from floor to ceiling. Behind the counter an old man naps on a chair, curled up in a seated fetal position. An unlit cigarette hangs from his mouth and a television crackles at low volume, less than a foot from his face. Here is our magic man.

My translator and I have been searching for the local version of a witch doctor – a quasi-psychic, self-professed religious figure who some people believe can heal illnesses, solve financial woes and even put curses on enemies and lovers alike. Such figures have a controversial status in Syria. They refer to themselves as ‘sheikh’. Many call them moushaweth, a term which basically translates to ignorant person.

I wake the old man and explain my family has a dire – and entirely falsified – health situation that requires his healing power. He takes my pulse, asks who I am and slowly agrees to perform an intervention.

“Return on Sunday at four,” he tells us. “Bring a photo of your mother.”

We return on Sunday. The old man tells us to walk down the street some 30 metres and wait for him at the end of a set of stores where less people can see us. Ten minutes later he arrives and leads us behind a fence where several ramshackle, mud-brick houses stand. He climbs a rickety wooden ladder and ushers us into a small, upstairs workshop, full of fur pelts, a giant sewing machine and a makeshift sofa.

Coffee is served and the old man presents his credentials. He was trained by another powerful mystic and is now able to connect with Christian, Muslim and Jewish spirits who speak Aramaic, Arabic and Hebrew (although he needs a translator for communicating with spirits whose tongue is Aramaic and Hebrew).

I look impressed and hand over a photo of my mother. The old man stares at it intently. For the next hour he burns frankincense and whispers in a trance, occasionally turning to enquire about my mother. At other times he throws in seemingly irrelevant questions, as if in conversation with a spirit: “Do you have four brothers? Is there one tree on the right side of your house in California?” Finally, he comes up with a cure – something my translator tells me he can only describe as “amber of whale”.

Toe of newt, eye of frog… amber of whale? This sounds good. Perhaps the spice souk, with its colourful powders and potions scattered among wild cat skins, dried, flattened lizards and shark jaws can provide me with this wonder drug.

We head into the souk. The first stall is a dead end, the owner no fan of such beliefs. “In this market there is no magic,” Mahmoud Durkel, manager of a spice stall which has been in his family for some 250 years, says. He proceeds to recite a sura from the Koran about the corruption of superstition.

Two-sided identity

Mystics have a strange, two-sided identity in Syria. Many Syrians have stories about a neighbour who can tell the future through coffee grounds; my translator even tells me about a special ‘goat’ from Deir ez-Zor whose milk can cure infertility.

Being a mystic is only illegal in Syria if they charge for their services. In the eyes of the law, according to two local attorneys, the customer is paying for nothing and as such is being scammed. A mystic who accepts payment faces a jail term of three months to one year.

Damascus-based writer Mohammad al-Aas wrote the popular Night and Men TV drama series documenting the activities of a group of crafty mystics. As part of his research for the show, which aired last year, Aas went undercover to visit a handful of self-proclaimed healers, claiming a variety of fake marital and occupational predicaments to see what would happen. So taboo was the subject, Aas said it was hard to find people who would even take him to a mystic.

Eventually, through friends of friends, As ended up in “obscure places, narrow allies and weird locations”, uncovering much material for his series in the process. Numerous mystics burnt incense, wrote down words on pieces of paper, touched his body and talked in trances. One asked him to bring his daughter over for some spell-making. All of them charged money.

The experience left Aas sceptical to say the least. “They are friends of Satan,” he said. “They are the peak of evil, the cream of the crop of evil.”

Despite their dubious reputation, including a recent high-profile raid on a group of mystics in Homs, these figures continue to draw in clients. Aas said, those who seek them out are often desperate and vulnerable. More often than not they are women. Many are poor, but Aas was quick to add it is not only poor or uneducated Syrians who get drawn in.

Amber of whale

Back in the spice souk, we have found a more accommodating seller. Amber of whale, the young spice merchant tells me, is a rock-like resin a little like frankincense. I pick up a chunk. Similar to ‘tongue of the bird’, the name of the yellow flower petals also sold in the market, its fancy name seems to be the most mystical thing about it. I ask the seller if it will heal my mother. “I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad,” he tells me. “People come with these beliefs already set in their head before they buy.”

The mystic encourages me to make the purchase. With a chunk of whale amber in my pocket we return to his stall. He tells me during our session he was communicating with a spirit that only spoke Aramaic. I need to travel to his translator the following week for a full reading. Alternatively, I could come to his home one night the following week. The male translator won’t be necessary. In the meantime, I have to call my mother in California and tell her to dangle cactus leaves around her head for 10 days while reciting certain verses from the Koran. He charges nothing.

I leave the old man curled up in his chair in front of the television, with customers looking for horse leather and, just maybe, a little magic.

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Iraqi refugees stage protest outside UN offices

Iraqi refugees stage protest outside UN offices

Iraqi refugees, some of whom have been living in exile for more than four years, staged a demonstration outside the United Nations refugee agency office in Damascus on May 26, to protest their “abandonment” by the international community.

“We are tired of this, we have been forgotten,” said Waleed al Ali, one of the protest organisers and a registered refugee at the UNHCR. “We get given a piece of paper to hold, it’s nothing. I’m not even asking for help anymore, I just want some signal from the UN that they know we exist, that they are following our cases.”

There are currently 206,000 registered Iraqi refugees in Syria.

According to UN figures, since 2007 more than 28,000 refugee cases from Syria have been submitted to potential host countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Britain and other members of the European Union.

Of those, 10,593 refugees have been accepted and have left for their new homes, something that has caused frustration and anger among the refugee community.

“We do have a huge number of desperate people here that see resettlement as the only solution to their problem,” UNHCR Spokesperson Sybella Wilkes said. “We expect to be submitting more than 60,000 cases that we think require resettlement in a third country, but the hard fact is that only a fraction of that number will get accepted.”

Refugees’ fears that they are being forgotten are shared by UN officials. The UNHCR has appealed for SYP 14.2bn to (USD 299m) meet the requirements of Iraqis in Syria in 2009. It has so far received 52 percent of that amount and has warned that assistance programmes, including already limited healthcare, education and financial aid to the poorest families will have to be cut back.

“We are very concerned that the plight of Iraqi refugees seems to have fallen off the radar,” Wilkes said. “There has been an improvement in the security situation in Iraq but that does not equate to a situation to which all refugees can return. Iraqi refugees have huge ongoing needs and this is not the time to turn away from them.”

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Syria names new defence minister

1 day ago

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria named former army chief Ali Habib Mahmud as its new defence minister on Wednesday, in the latest government shakeup, the official Sana news agency reported.

He was appointed under a decree issued by President Bashar al-Assad and replaces general Hassan Ali Turkmani who held the post since November 2004, the agency said.

Turkmani, 74, becomes deputy to the vice president.

Assad last reshuffled the government in April, appointing six new ministers and creating a separate portfolio for the environment, headed by a woman.

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Jun 4, 2009 17:19 | Updated Jun 4, 2009 17:21
Syria implements defense reshuffle
By THE MEDIA LINE NEWS AGENCY


In a major reorganization of the defense establishment, Syrian President Basher Assad has promoted the Syrian commander-in-chief, Lt.-Gen. Hassan Ali Tourkomani, to assistant vice president.
Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Lt.-Gen Ali Habib Mahmoud, who currently serves as chief of staff, has been appointed minister of defense. Mahmoud succeeded Tourkomani as chief of staff in 2004 when Tourkomani was appointed commander-in-chief.

This is the second cabinet reorganization in Damascus since April, when Assad appointed six new ministers, among them a new interior minister and environment minister, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported.

The news comes as the United States State Department plans to send a delegation to Syria in the upcoming days, according to State Department press secretary, P.J. Crowley.

"We are trying to improve our communication between the United States and Syria," Crowley said during a press briefing.

"I think they talked primarily about the possibility of upcoming travel to Syria," Crowley said in reference to a question regarding the phone conversations between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Syrian Foreign Minster Walid Moallem on Sunday evening.

Crowley did not elaborate on whether or not Senator George Mitchell, US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, would travel to Syria when he travels to Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week for talks with local leaders.

Washington has not had an ambassador in Damascus since Margaret Scobey was withdrawn following the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri in February 2005. Many Western countries have accused Syria of being behind the assassination and have withdrawn their ambassadors from Syria.

In May 2009, Obama renewed US sanctions against Syria that were initiated following the Al-Hariri assassination.

There are currently three types of sanctions by the US government, the most comprehensive of which is the Syria Accountability Act which prohibits the export of most goods containing more than 10 percent US-manufactured component parts to Syria.

A second sanction, resulting from the American Patriot Act, was aimed specifically against the Commercial Bank of Syria in 2006.

The third type of sanction specifically denies certain Syrian citizens and entities access to the US financial system due to their participation in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, association with al-Qaida, the Taliban or Osama bin Laden, or in destabilizing activities in Iraq and Lebanon.

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Syria Appoints Senior Officials

Wednesday, 3 June 2009

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad issued two presidential decrees on Wednesday appointing a new assistant vice president and minister of defense, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Wednesday, according to Xinhua.

President Assad appointed Lt. General Hassan Ali Tourkomani as Assistant Vice President and Lt. General Ali Habib Mahmoud as Defense Minister.

Mahmoud has been serving as the Chief of Staff since 2004 in succession of Tourkomani.

Meanwhile, Tourkomani was the Minister of Defense and the Commander-in-Chief.

The limited cabinet reshuffle is the sixth to be made on the current government. President Assad made a similar reshuffle in April appointing six new ministers.

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Syria, Armenia hold bilateral talks
Published: June 03, 2009


YEREVAN, Armenia, June 3 (UPI) -- Armenian and Syrian officials met in Yerevan to discuss bilateral relations and the regional diplomatic situation, a government news agency reports.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem met with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to discuss political solutions to regional issues facing both countries, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reports.

Damascus hopes to strengthen its regional position in the community. Washington has dispatched top diplomats to Damascus in the hopes of reaching a variety of agreements with Syrian officials on issues ranging from Lebanon to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Syria has also signed a series of energy agreements with neighboring Iraq and Iran with the hopes of securing export potential in ports in the Mediterranean Sea.

Moallem said Damascus and Yerevan shared nearly identical viewpoints on regional issues.

Armenia, for its part, is wrestling with its own regional complications over Nagorno-Karabakh.

War broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s, and the regional fallout from that row remains tense despite a 1994 cease-fire.

In related developments, Syrian President Bashar Assad in his third round of Cabinet shake-ups appointed Lt. Gen. Tourkmani as his assistant vice president and Lt. Gen. Ali Habib Mahmoud as his next minister of defense.

Assad appointed new Cabinet officials at the ministries of Justice, Interior, Health, Local Administration and Presidential Affairs in addition and created a new environmental position on April 24.


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19:36 12/05/2009
Syrian army chief in Beirut to improve military ties with Lebanon
By The Associated Press

Syria's army chief sought Tuesday to improve military ties with Lebanon as part of efforts to bridge the gulf between the two nations, lingering after Syria's almost 30-year-long military domination of its smaller neighbor.

Accompanied by a high-ranking military delegation, Gen. Ali Habib held talks in Beirut with President Michel Suleiman and army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji.

Habib is the highest ranking military official to visit Lebanon since Syria's withdrawal in 2005.

The visit comes as relations between the two countries have steadily improved in recent months. The two long-feuding rivals, who both gained independence from France in the 1940s, opened embassies and established diplomatic relations last year.

A statement from Suleiman's office said he thanked Habib for the assistance provided by Syria's military to Lebanon's army. It did not specify what the assistance entailed.

The statement also added the two armies will aim together to confront
suspicious schemes by the joint enemy, Israel, and terrorism. Lebanon and
Syria consider Israel their common enemy, often alluding to what they call Israeli plans against their territories.

Damascus' hold on Lebanon unraveled in 2005, after former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a truck bombing that many Lebanese blame on Syria. Damascus denies any involvement. After Hariri's assassination, Syria caved to U.S.-led international pressure and withdrew its troops from here.

A Lebanese military statement said the two sides agreed Tuesday to exchange security information to fight terrorism, prevent cross-border smuggling, work on training and logistics and intensify efforts to reveal the fate of dozens of Lebanese soldiers who went missing during a 1990 battle between Syrian troops and soldiers loyal to a Lebanese commander.

Relations between the two countries reached a turning point last August, when they agreed to establish ties and demarcate their contentious border.

In January, Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr visited Syria for the first time since escaping a 2005 assassination attempt which he suggested at the time was the work of Syrian intelligence agents.

---------------------------
Syrian army chief says Damascus ready to offer military assistance
Sleiman says two states will work to confront Israeli 'schemes'
By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

BEIRUT: A senior Syrian military official met with President Michel Sleiman and army chief Jean Khawaji in Beirut on Tuesday. The visit of the Syrian Army's chief-of-staff, General Ali Habib, is the first from Syrian top-brass since Damascus ended its 30-year occupation of Lebanon in the spring of 2005.

It will be seen as an important development in thawing relations between Syria and Lebanon, which established diplomatic relations last year for the first time since the period of Syrian "tutelage" ended.

Habib headed a military delegation aimed at discussing Syria's willingness to provide Lebanon with military support. The delegation discussed increasing military cooperation with their Lebanese counterparts, as well as improving security on the two country's shared border and counter-terrorism initiatives.

After the meeting, Sleiman released a statement in which he thanked Habib for the assistance provided by Syria's military to Lebanon's army. The statement also added the two armies will aim together to "confront suspicious schemes by the joint enemy, Israel, and terrorism."

The Lebanese army said that in addition, both sides had agreed to intensify efforts to reveal the fate of dozens of Lebanese soldiers who went missing during a 1990 battle with Syrian troops.

A Lebanese source close to the talks told the DPA news agency that Habib was keen to develop military aid from Syria to Lebanon, and will discuss offering training, equipment and ammunition in addition to assistance with logistics.

Usually military aid deals are brokered through the Defense Ministry, headed by Defense Minister Elias Murr. But the source told DPA that Habib did not meet with Murr, or Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who are both perceived by Damascus to be close to anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon.

Retired General Elias Hanna, who served in the Lebanese army, said that it would be wrong to read too much into decision not to meet with Siniora or Murr. "He is not at the level of the Prime Minister or the Defense minister. He is at the level of the head of the army," Hanna said, adding that the president's background as a former head of the army made it appropriate for him to meet with Habib.

He said the visit was to be expected after Khawaji visited Damascus last year. "This is not unusual. The head of our army visited Syria. From a political point of view, he had to come over here," Hanna said.

He said that the engagement would help to cement Lebanon's status as separate from Syria. "I see it as a positive because it establishes separateness between the Syrian army and the Lebanese army," he said.

But he added that he did not believe the visit was indicative of thaw in relations between the two states. "We have to be practical, because they still influence Lebanon in certain ways." he said. "We are going through a period of calm now, and we need this for elections that are coming up on the 7th of June."

Any signs that Lebanon and Syria are engaging as separate states will be tentatively welcomed by the West, which has reached out to Damascus in recent months. Relations between the two countries were deeply strained in 2005, when public outcry at the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri led to Syria withdrawing from Lebanon. Damascus has consistently denied involvement in Hariri's murder, but many Lebanese remain convinced that killing was carried out on orders from Syria.

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Syrian Chief of Staff in Beirut Says Damascus Ready to Offer Military Assistance
Visiting Syrian chief of staff Gen. Ali Habib on Tuesday delivered a message to President Michel Suleiman from the Syrian leadership expressing the country's readiness to extend assistance to the Lebanese army.
Habib, who is heading a military delegation, is the senior Syrian military official to visit Lebanon since Syria withdrew its soldiers in 2005.

In Baabda, Habib told Suleiman that Syria was "keen to help consolidate security and stability in Lebanon and was ready to offer all the assistance that the military establishment requires."

For his part, Suleiman praised the continuous cooperation between the two armies against "the Israeli army and terrorism."

He thanked the Syrian army for its "assistance, past and present" to the Lebanese army.

"The Lebanese army proved it has become immune against all forms of conspiracies … especially those that aim to sow disunity. The army no longer submits to political wrnaglings and is not a tool to achieve personal gains," Suleiman added.

Habib later met with Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Jean Qahwaji who expressed hope the two countries would "join forces to confront the Israeli enemy's conspiracies and plans to create incitements that threaten Lebanon and Syria alike."

For his part, Habib stressed Syria's "keenness to support the Lebanese army considering it is the sole establishment that guarantees Lebanon's unity and steadfastness."

"Under the instructions of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman, Syria seeks to support anything that would help boost Lebanon's force and consolidate security and stability to serve the best interest of the two brotherly countries," he added.

The two military leaders also discussed joint measures to boost border security and combat terrorism. They also agreed to intensify efforts to uncover the fate of soldiers who have gone missing over the past years.

As Safir daily pointed that Habib's agenda neither included Prime Minister Fouad Saniora nor Defense Minister Elias Murr.


Beirut, 12 May 09, 16:24

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巡査長が勝手に被害届取り下げ　「仕事の負担減らしたかった」 (1/3ページ)
2009.6.5 17:09

　茨城県警は５日、笠間署の刑事課に所属していた男性巡査長（３３）が平成１６年に受理した傷害事件の被害届を、被害者に無断で取り下げていたと発表した。県警は同日、虚偽有印公文書作成・同公使容疑で巡査長を水戸地検に書類送検したうえで、戒告処分とした。巡査長は「仕事の負担を軽くしたかった」と容疑を認めているという。

　県警監察室によると、同署に被害届が提出されたのは１６年８月３０日。同県笠間市内の民家で同２８日、この家に住む当時８０代の男性と５０代の娘が、息子に殴られ軽傷を負ったという内容だった。

----------------------
Course in Russian diplomacy awaits new Sulzer chief

By Paul Betts

Published: June 4 2009 22:38 | Last updated: June 4 2009 22:38

Jürgen Dormann clearly likes corporate challenges. His first big challenge was to rescue Hoechst, the German chemical conglomerate which fell on hard times soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He revived it and ultimately merged it with France’s Rhône-Poulenc to create Aventis.

At an age when most senior executives would have contemplated retirement, he subsequently took on the task of rescuing ABB, the Swedish-Swiss engineering group that was on the verge of collapse. ABB is now flourishing again and the 69-year-old German manager appeared to be enjoying a well-earned rest.

Not so, it seems. Mr Dormann is about to take on the third big challenge of his career, becoming the new chairman of Sulzer. The Sulzer board this week unanimously backed his nomination, which is due to be confirmed at an extraordinary general meeting in mid-August.

His task this time will not be to revive another fallen and once venerable industrial group. Sulzer is in fine shape, reporting strong profits and sales last year and a healthy order backlog that should help the Swiss industrial pump-maker weather the current difficult market conditions.

The problem is that this impressive performance has been overshadowed by a fierce boardroom battle that has shaken the group ever since Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian tycoon, accumulated a 31 per cent stake in the company. The Russian and Sulzer’s departing chairman Ulf Berg have never seen eye to eye.

Indeed, Mr Berg has fought tooth and nail to maintain the group’s independence and prevent Mr Vekselberg from orchestrating a merger with another old-established Swiss engineering company, Oerlikon, in which he has also accumulated a commanding stake of about 44.7 per cent.

Unlike Sulzer, Oerlikon is in a difficult financial situation as a result of slumping demand and an unconvincing expansion strategy in the past few years. The highly leveraged company lost money last year and expects to be in the red again this year.

Given Oerlikon’s poor track record, Sulzer’s outgoing chairman appears to have had a strong case to resist his Russian shareholder’s earlier attempts to engineer a merger between the two Swiss groups. But he has clearly had to pay the price for falling out with Mr Vekselberg, who blocked his re-election as chairman at Sulzer’s annual meeting in April.

The Russian tycoon has since said he has no immediate plans to combine Oerlikon and Sulzer. He recently said the two companies would not be merged to solve Oerlikon’s financial problems. But he also did not rule out a future merger.

So the challenge for Mr Dormann will not only be to restore a more harmonious relationship with Sulzer’s biggest shareholder, but also to continue defending the best interests of the company and its other investors. He ultimately has far less to lose than the Russian tycoon if the relationship does not work. That probably explains why Sulzer shares surged on Thursday.

BNP Paribas on the ball

There will be no French champions playing in this weekend’s women’s and men’s finals of the Paris Roland-Garros tennis tournament. But that is not expected very much to bother one of its principal sponsors, BNP Paribas, since it has already scored an important set point in the current game of European banking consolidation.

Thanks to its successful Belgian acquisition of Fortis, the French bank has hoisted itself to third place in the European banking sector’s stock market capitalisation league table, behind Spain’s Santander in second position and HSBC in the number one slot.

BNP Paribas has seen its capitalisation increase by 58 per cent since the beginning of the year and its market value is now nearly as high as the combined capitalisation of its two big French competitors – Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. These two have now dropped to number 12 and 13, respectively, in the European market cap league. As a result, they are likely to come under pressure to react to the lead BNP Paribas has taken over its domestic rivals.

SocGen and Crédit Agricole have already combined their asset management activities, with SocGen giving control of this business to the French “farmers’” bank. Some saw the deal as yet another defensive move by SocGen to make it even more difficult for BNP Paribas to lay its hands on its rival.

With Fortis in the bag, this is now highly improbable. In turn, this will ultimately mean that SocGen will now have to consider becoming a little more aggressive to try to win the next set in the consolidation match.

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Russian MPs call for nationalisation of plant

By Isabel Gorst in Moscow

Published: June 4 2009 01:55 | Last updated: June 4 2009 01:55

Lawmakers in Russia demanded the nationalisation of an idled alumina factory in north-west Russia controlled by Oleg Deripaska, the indebted metals tycoon, on Wednesday after workers took to the streets to protest poverty and unemployment in the region.

A group of MPs submitted a bill calling for the government to take over BaselCement, an alumina plant controlled by Basic Element, Mr Deripaska’s investment company, and two other factories in Pikalyovo, a small town 270km from St Petersburg.

The move came after hundreds of demonstrators from Pikalyovo defied police orders on Tuesday and blocked a motorway as frustration about job losses and wage arrears boiled over.

Russia has seen few demonstrations since the onset of the financial crisis, but the Kremlin is concerned that falling living standards and unemployment which reached 7.7m last month could trigger mass unrest.

Pikalyovo, a small town of 23,000 inhabitants, depends on the three factories for a living. BaselCement halted operations last year and the other two are under financial pressure.

The Kremlin said that Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, who was on an official visit to Finland on Wednesday, was monitoring events in Pikalyovo and was in close contact with the governor of Leningrad region.

The local administration in Leningrad region disbursed emergency funds to ease poverty and pay utility bills in the town.

Andrey Isayev, a member of the ruling United Russia party and a co-author of the bill, accused the factory owners of “irresponsible behavior”, saying they had “placed their egocentric, selfish interests above … those of society, the region the country and the people who work for them”.

He said nationalisation, although not desirable on a wide scale, would serve as a cautionary tale for other investors.

A spokeswoman for BaselCement told Interfax that the nationalisation of the three plants would be “a good way out of a very difficult social situation”.

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Brazilian exchange to open London office

By Jeremy Grant in London

Published: June 4 2009 09:55 | Last updated: June 4 2009 09:55

BM&F Bovespa, the Brazilian exchange, plans to open a London office next month as part of a push to encourage greater foreign participation in its rapidly-growing electronically-driven equities and derivatives markets.

The exchange, like Brazil itself, has weathered the financial crisis better than most of its global rivals, with rising volumes that have helped make the Latin American bourse the world’s fourth largest by market capitalisation.

That puts it ahead of NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX and the London Stock Exchange.

Paulo de Sousa Oliveira, chief business development officer, said the opening of the London office would build on the opening of another in Shanghai in 2004, and an existing office in New York.

It was aimed at increasing the share of foreign participation in the exchange’s derivatives markets from a current level of around 20 per cent. Foreign participation in its equities markets stands at around 35 per cent.

BM&F Bovespa is the product of the merger in 2007 of the Bovespa equities exchange and the BM&F derivatives exchange. Since then, the group has been rapidly shifting from “open outcry” trading to electronic. Its shares have risen by 90 per cent since the start of the year, compared with a 56 rise in the FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index.

The expansion into electronic trading, combined with the installation of “direct market access” (DMA) systems for foreign traders, has allowed BM&F Bovespa to tap a growing number of traders globally that want exposure to Brazilian derivatives such as stock index futures and a commodity futures such as soyabeans.

Previously, foreign traders would have to call a broker in Brazil on the telephone. The broker would then place the order on the exchange.

DMA allows traders outside the host country of an exchange - particularly those using trading algorithms increasingly common in electronic trading - to access BM&F Bovespa products electronically without using an intermediary.

Mr Oliveira said about 60 per cent of derivatives volume on the exchange was the result of DMA trading, compared with almost zero last year. DMA accounted for 54 per cent of equities volume, and was “ really growing” he said.

The only remaining open outcry pit, where “Ibovespa” stock index futures are traded by around 200 traders, will be closed next month. “It’s the end of an era,” Mr Oliveira told the Financial Times at the Mondo Visione Exchange Forum.

To further improve access by foreign traders, BM&F Bovespa will on June 15 launch a “co-location” service. Co-location is increasingly common among exchanges and allows traders to physically locate the computer servers in exchange data centres, right next to – or metres from – the exchange’s matching engine itself. This helps cut the time it takes for trades to be executed.

BM&F Bovespa also has a cross-shareholding arrangement with CME Group, the Chicago-based derivatives exchange. This includes an “order routing agreement” enabling customers in more than 80 countries using CME’s Globex electronic trading platform to trade BM&F Bovespa products directly, via the Brazilian exchange’s electronic trading platform.

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Chinese moving into iron ore swaps

By Javier Blas in London

Published: June 5 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 5 2009 03:00

Chinese companies have started trading iron ore in the nascent derivatives market in a further sign that Beijing could be laying the ground to move away from the benchmark system of annual iron ore prices.

The iron ore swaps allow participants to hedge exposure to the physical iron ore spot market. The derivatives could gain importance if miners and Chinese steelmakers fail to reach an agreement over 2009-10 benchmark prices.

Traders and brokers told the Financial Times that up to seven Chinese trading companies were participating in the swaps market and that at least one China-based steelmaker was likely to join the market before the end of the month.

The arrival of Chinese companies comes after the Singapore Exchange and LCH.Clearnet, Europe's largest independent clearing house, started clearing iron ore swaps a month ago.

Central clearing is important because until now, buyers and sellers of the private, bilateral over-the-counter swaps bore the risk of their counterparties defaulting, deterring many from dealing with China.

"More than a handful of Chinese counterparties have come to the market in the last month," said Michael Gaylard, an iron ore broker at Freight Investor Services in London.

Clive Murray, head of London Dry Bulk, the iron ore brokers, added that the entry into the iron ore swaps market of Chinese companies linked to the steel industry was "a fantastic development and signals that they are moving forward with the times and embracing the concept of risk management further".

The likelihood of a structural change to price iron ore sales based on spot prices rather than annual benchmark settlements comes a year after the launch of the first cash-settled ore swap by Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Other banks, including Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital have since joined. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, aim to start trading iron ore swaps.

Benchmark negotiations between Chinese steelmakers, led by the China Iron and Steel Association, and miners Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale, have been particularly tortuous this year and remain deadlocked ahead of a potential deadline on June 30.

There are signs that BHP Billiton is pushing for a move to quarterly pricing, based on the spot market, and away from the traditional benchmark system, which has been the cornerstone of the industry for the past 40 years.

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Hamas-Israel comparison sparks criticism

By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: June 4 2009 21:08 | Last updated: June 4 2009 23:51

Given that he quoted the Koran three times, opened with “Assalamu Aleikum”, empathised with the suffering of Palestinians and strongly endorsed their “legitimate aspirations” to a separate state, the reaction to Barack Obama’s speech from pro-Israeli groups back home was surprisingly muted.

Mr Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, said that the US was at war with “Islamofascism”. But Mr Obama, whose speech did not include the words “terror” or “terrorism” and who has abandoned all use of Mr Bush’s “global war on terror”, is way too popular at home and abroad to take on directly.

However, Republicans and pro-Israeli groups did criticise the speech’s alleged equation of Israel with the Palestinian groups, including Hamas, which is officially designated by the US as a terrorist organisation. “I was troubled to the extent that I heard moral relativism,” said Liz Cheney, the former state department official and daughter of Dick Cheney.

John Boehner, the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, said: “Hamas is a terrorist organisation; they have been funded by the Syrians, and the Iranians, and I don’t think the Israelis deserve to be put in the same category with terrorists.”

Shortly after Mr Obama finished his speech in Cairo, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, redoubled his criticisms of the president’s plans to close the Guantánamo Bay detention centre – a line that generated strong applause in Cairo. “Like most Americans, I am for keeping Guantánamo open. It is safe and securely away from our civilian population,” said Mr McConnell.

There were also indications the Cairo speech could embolden pro-Israeli groups to articulate more strongly their so far restrained anxieties about Mr Obama’s support for an Arab-Israeli peace process. The American Israeli Political Action Committee, the largest pro-Israeli lobby group, refused to comment publicly.

But a number of lobby groups voiced reservations about Mr Obama’s allegedly soft treatment of Iran. One lobbyist said: “Here was the right venue and right moment to rally the Arab coalition against Iran’s nuclear programme and the president ducked it.”

In what was a rich speech, which will be parsed for weeks to come, others pointed out that Mr Obama had departed from convention in more subtle ways. For example, he conceded that the US had overthrown the democratically-elected Iranian government in 1953 – the first time a US president has acknowledged this.

And Mr Obama dropped a hint that he understood the Arab world’s concerns at Israel’s nuclear weapons status. “I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not,” Mr Obama said. Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government official, who is now at the New America Foundation, said: “Might this be a kind of: ‘Yes – we acknowledge there is a double standard here regarding the Israeli nuclear issue, and eventually we will get to that too’?”

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The Big Smoke

By Henry Harding

The Big Smoke

Last year, the world passed a milestone. For the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the population was recorded as living in cities. With Damascus and Aleppo vying for the title of oldest continually inhabited city in the world, Syria is hardly a stranger to urban living. Nevertheless, the country’s cities are expanding at an astonishing rate.

Officially, the government estimates some 4.12m people live in Greater Damascus, which comprises the capital and surrounding area. Other estimates, however, put the figure as high as 7m. Taken with Aleppo’s 3m inhabitants, just under 50 percent of the population now lives in the two largest cities.

The move to the cities is set to continue, with 75 percent of the Syrian population predicted to live in urban areas by 2050. Drought and rising fuel prices have sparked a new rural exodus in recent years, particularly from marginal land in the eastern governorates. At the same time, the ongoing economic opening has led many to seek out new opportunities in the capital where the bulk of new regional and international companies are based.

The Big SmokeSyrian cities are ill-equipped to cope with the influx, which endangers not only their character, but compromises their ability to provide an acceptable minimum of services. In particular, they lack the necessary planning facilities to control and direct urban growth. Good planning is not just a matter of predicting where to install services such as electricity and sewage networks. It also prevents over-concentration of the population and consequent environmental degradation. Perhaps just as importantly, it helps to ensure something less immediately tangible – a sense of place and identity.

Take Damascus. In the late 1970s, around one-third of the Ghuta Oasis in which Damascus is situated consisted of built-up area. Today, that figure is around two-thirds. Rainfall is low, only 200mm a year, and the city lies in a basin which makes it particularly vulnerable to water shortages and air pollution. Most of the new suburbs built in the Ghuta have been built illegally. Lacking legal status, their residents have difficulty accessing credit and official services. Such settlements constitute 40 percent of Damascus. Damage to the historic urban fabric of the Old City is such that in 2006 UNESCO threatened to withdraw the city’s World Heritage Site status.

“Planning is a big challenge for Damascus,” Abdul Fattah Ayaso, director of urban planning at the Damascus Governorate, said.

Ecochard’s vision

The first formal urban plans for Damascus were drawn up in 1925, under French rule. Later, in 1968, the French architect Michel Ecochard was commissioned to draw up a master plan which – in theory – continues to inform urban development in the city. On paper, the plan is logical. The city is divided into zones from A to M, there are special regulations for the part of the Old City which lies inside its walls, and agricultural areas are deliberately preserved to ensure a supply of fresh vegetables for the city. The Qassa district just outside Bab Touma is a good example of Ecochard’s vision for Damascus.
CITY LIVING
Damascus 4.5m
Aleppo 3m
Homs 800,000
Lattakia 500,000
Hama 400,000
Deir ez-Zor 230,000

* estimates compiled from reports by the Syrian government and various non-governmental organisations

However, the plan fails to take into account the city’s identity, as well as the existing urban context. Architectural ideas have been applied without being adapted to the local urban fabric, with unfortunate results. Much of what is now downtown Damascus consists of multi-storey office blocks and flyovers of the type that were fashionable in Europe in the 1960s.

“We imported experiments from Europe without adapting them to the reality of Damascus,” Suleiman Mhanna, professor of urban development at the University of Damascus, said. “You do not find experimental architecture in the centre of Paris.”

According to Mhanna, only about 50 percent of Ecochard’s plan has ever been applied. The sheer scale of urban growth has made formal plans difficult to apply. Corruption is another factor; many officials have turned a blind eye over the years to illegal building. In fact, the Syrian government recognises most illegal settlements as a fait accompli, in so far as it attempts to provide services to them. Some settlements, however, are built in areas susceptible to earthquakes and will ultimately need to be evacuated for the safety of their own inhabitants. Wealthy Damascenes moved out of the Old City long ago, leaving it to people who often had neither the means to maintain the houses in the traditional style nor an understanding of the importance of doing so.

Part of the problem has been the lack of formal regional planning. Syria’s centralised economy and institutions drew people to the capital. Damascus University, for instance, has more than 130,000 students, about a third of whom are drawn from the neighbouring Dera’a and Suweida governorates where there are no universities. Although there are initiatives to promote regional growth centres, such as the industrial cities in Homs and Aleppo or the free zone planned for Qamishle, by and large the effects of Syria’s economic opening have still to filter out from Damascus, and, to a lesser extent, Aleppo. Creating more job opportunities in these cities would help slow the influx into the capital.

Need for simplified processes

The planning process itself also needs attention. Processes are cumbersome and bureaucratic; the system needs to become faster and more responsive to the public. “It’s about managing the process of urbanisation in such a way as to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks,” Peter Ross, urban development team leader for the Municipal Administration Modernisation Programme (MAM), a SYP 1.3bn (EUR 20m) joint project between the EU and the Syrian government, said. “Currently, there is a gap.”

Ross said the country’s planning system is strong, “but the implementation can be improved.” Reducing the number of permits and forms would shorten the time needed to gain planning permission considerably. The MAM project is also helping to compile a Geographical Information System – essentially, working out who owns what and where. Currently, the planning system is flawed, with planners preoccupying themselves with the nitty-gritty details rather than the broader issues at stake.

Plans are subject to constant appeal, often from property owners concerned that their houses have been earmarked for demolition. By separating the layers of planning into strategic and localised plans, the planning system can be speeded up and authorities can regain control over the urbanisation process. This, Ross said, would allow the public to have more input at the formulation stage, which will reduce the time and money wasted in legal challenges to detailed aspects of a plan. “There is at least as much concern from Syrians about the future of their cities as there is in Europe,” he said.

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Living Outside the Law

By Syria Today staff

Living Outside the LawPerched on Damascus’s north-east mountain pass, a crowded mass of concrete homes rises over the city with barely concealed gloom. Service taxis treacherously honk their way up the winding road and children gather in playful groups, suggesting an air of normalcy. But turn off the main road, and streams of pothole-ridden alleys, webs of dangerous cables and open sewage pipes present a grim reality.

The neighbourhood of Aysh Warwar – Bird’s Nest in English – is the poorest of Damascus’s many informal, or illegal, settlements. Built beyond the realm of government control, the neighbourhood has steadily increased in size since a few soldiers built the first concrete huts for their families in the 1970s.

Today, the area is home to tens of thousands of people and, if the constant drone of construction noise is anything to go by, hundreds more continue to arrive from the countryside every year.

While lower-lying areas of Aysh Warwar obtained access to vital services such as electricity, water and sanitation in the mid-1990s, many new homes which have since been built further up the mountainside, are beyond the reach of service networks and, therefore, lack even these most basic of services.

Abu Arab, a stout man who has been living in the settlement for 21 years, says the plight of many inhabitants is desperate. “Water is our biggest problem,” he said, explaining that from a certain point up the mountain, residents are forced to pay a truck to deliver them water once a week at the hefty price of SYP 1,000 (USD 21) per 2,000 litres. With no running water and a poor sewage system, disease spreads easily, Abu Arab said.

Informal growth

According to the Syrian government, the term ‘informal settlements’ refers to houses built outside the boundaries of urban planning regulations. They are, therefore, despite their long-standing existence, technically illegal.

However, poor urban planning policies and rapid urban growth over the last 50 years means that for many city residents informal settlements are the only affordable way of living. As urban centres have experienced rapid development since the 1980s – growth is now estimated at 3 percent annually – inadequate provision of new serviced land has fallen short of what is needed. According to the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the country’s current housing deficit is estimated at 687,000 units. The result is that families have increasingly been pushed towards the informal housing sector and settlements have flourished.

It is now estimated that 40 to 50 percent of urban growth in Damascus is informal. Aysh Warwar is its most visible and poorest manifestation, but elsewhere across the city, from Mezzeh to Muhajereen, middle-class versions are prospering.

“Something like 40 percent of development of new cities in Syria is informal,” Peter Ross, urban development team leader at the Municipal Administration Modernisation (MAM) Programme, said. “That means the city authorities do not have control over the way urban growth happens in almost half of the city.”

Ross added, however, that compared to the slums and shacks found in illegal settlements across the developing world, Damascus’s informal settlements fare significantly better. Official guidance dating from the early 1980s requires that all informal settlements in Syria be provided with basic services. Ross said the government has worked hard to provide informal areas with basic services, except where it is physically impossible, as in parts of Mount Qassioun.

Abdul Fattah Ayaso, director of urban planning at the Damascus Governorate, said that other than the heights of Aysh Warwar, most of Damascus’s informal settlements have basic services and houses that are structurally sound.

Yet worries and challenges abound. The plight of Aysh Warwar demonstrates that for some inhabitants, living conditions are close to unbearable. In addition to a lack of services and safety concerns regarding dangerous constructions – some informal houses have been built so badly that they demand demolition – there is a notable lack of public spaces in areas like Aysh Warwar.

“There’s not enough open space, there’s not enough provision of car parking facilities and there’s not enough provision of space for social facilities, education or health,” Ross said.

Living Outside the LawAysh Warwar itself only contains one temporary-looking primary school. Other areas present different difficulties. Illegal settlements on Mount Qassioun, for instance, are located directly above a 300-metre-long fault line.

The illegal status of property results in a number of other barriers to those living in such areas. Because the houses are essentially illegal, owners cannot officially register their homes in their names, thus preventing them from associated benefits such as access to finance. Development economists say the lack of property rights is a major barrier preventing people from escaping poverty. Additionally, many illegal settlements are located on state-owned land, meaning the government could technically reclaim the land at any moment.

Since 2003 the government has taken a stricter stance towards certain informal housing areas, passing legislation which allows authorities to demolish houses built, or being built, illegally. In the Sheikh Maqsoud area of Aleppo, for example, several families were recently evicted from their illegally built homes after the government land they lived on was sold to a private developer.

Numerous challenges

The government says it is committed to addressing the issue of illegal housing. Ayaso said studies are currently underway to assess what needs to be done and the recommendations will be implemented from the end of 2009. Syrian authorities have also held talks with noted Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto whose works on informal economies and the importance of property rights in addressing poverty saw him nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics.

“The main aim of these strategies and policies will be to achieve a balance between the people and the place,” Ayaso said.

But, according to Ayaso, the settlements are very mixed in nature and a blanket solution cannot be applied to all cases. Potential solutions will depend on the safety of the constructions, the need for public space and services, as well as the ownership of the land.

“The plan now is to register the homes with their occupiers,” he said. He cautioned, however, that some people “are invading land they do not own and not everyone who lives in an illegal house will necessarily be able to own that house”.

It is also clear that some settlements will have to be demolished because of safety concerns.

Yet, according to Ross, the most urgent need is for more coordinated strategic planning to enable the government to maintain control over urban development. With the urban population expected to reach 75 percent of the country’s total population by 2050, it is clear that the government faces a significant challenge in regaining the initiative.

“The problem is that the Syrian planning system is not ahead of the game,” Ross said. “The changes are happening too quickly for the system to take account of them.”

Back in Aysh Warwar, however, there is calm about the fate of the mountainside settlement. Abu Ali, a shop owner who has lived in the settlement for four years, says people are confident that the government will not force them out.

“The government will compromise,” he said calmly. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”