En Irak, des briquetiers “fatigués” mais sans alternative

A l’aube, Dalia et Rukaya Ghali, deux jeunes soeurs, chargent un âne de lourdes briques. Couvertes de saleté, elles travaillent dur pendant des heures dans une briqueterie irakienne pour subvenir aux besoins de leur famille nombreuse.En Irak, des centaines de jeunes, et parfois des enfants âgés d’à peine dix ans, doivent abandonner l’école et travailler dans des briqueteries alimentées au pétrole pour aider leurs proches à joindre les deux bouts.”Je suis très fatiguée, mais que pouvons-nous faire d’autre?”, interroge Dalia Ghali, 17 ans, le visage couvert d’un foulard pour se protéger de la fumée et de la poussière saturant l’air près de la ville d’al-Kifl, à quelque 145 kilomètres au sud de Bagdad, dans la province de Babylone.”Sans moi et ma soeur, notre famille n’aurait pas pu survivre”, ajoute-t-elle au côté de sa cadette, âgée de 16 ans.Selon les autorités, près de 17% des 45 millions d’Irakiens vivent dans la pauvreté, Babylone étant la deuxième province dans la situation la plus précaire.La misère a poussé 5% des enfants au travail dans le pays, riche en pétrole, selon une étude de l’ONU, dont Dalia, qui a commencé à travailler à l’âge de dix ans.Pour environ sept à huit heures de travail quotidiennes, six jours sur sept, elle gagne environ 75 euros par semaine, juste assez pour permettre à deux de ses frères et soeurs de rester à l’école.Les briqueteries brûlent du mazout lourd, riche en soufre, causant des maladies respiratoires. La poussière dégagée abîme aussi les poumons des ouvriers, souvent touchés par des éruptions cutanées et une toux persistante.Les autorités ont demandé aux briqueteries de cesser progressivement d’utiliser du mazout lourd et ont fermé 111 usines près de Bagdad en 2024 pour non-respect des normes environnementales.- Manque de “soutien” -En été, les ouvriers débutent à minuit pour éviter la chaleur torride.Les femmes et les enfants chargent l’argile moulée sur une charrette tirée par un âne, puis l’acheminent vers un four en forme de dôme, où plusieurs hommes la déchargent pour le remplir.L’oncle de Dalia, Atiya Ghali, a commencé dans des briqueteries à l’âge de 12 ans et supervise aujourd’hui des dizaines d’ouvriers.Chaque été, les ouvriers, dont M. Ghali, s’installent avec leur famille dans de petites pièces en argile au sein de l’usine pour échapper aux longues coupures d’électricité et aux pénuries d’eau chez eux.”Nos salaires sont insuffisants et les autorités ne nous soutiennent pas”, estime l’homme de 43 ans, soulignant que tout le monde ne pouvait pas avoir un “travail aussi dur”.Malgré des conditions de vie difficiles, M. Ghali, qui n’a jamais eu d’autre emploi, se dit toutefois prêt à travailler “toute (sa) vie” dans cette usine, n’ayant pas d’autre source de revenus.Sa femme Tahrir, 35 ans, travaille souvent avec lui mais refuse d’amener ses six enfants à l’usine comme leurs cousines.”Je veux qu’ils deviennent médecins.”- Certains “sont morts” -Chaque matin, Sabah Mahdi, 33 ans, part travailler avec l’angoisse constante du risque d’accidents liés à son métier.”Certains ont été blessés et d’autres sont morts”, assure-t-il, évoquant le décès d’un collègue coincé dans une machine à couper les briques et d’un autre brûlé dans le four.En 2024, 28 briquetiers ont perdu la vie et 80 ont été blessés dans le centre et le sud de l’Irak, victimes d’explosions de réservoirs, d’incendies et de l’effondrement de plafonds, ont rapporté des sources médicales à l’AFP.Malgré le danger, de nombreux ouvriers ont appelé les autorités à ne pas fermer les usines, pour beaucoup leur seule source de revenus, tout en demandant des améliorations des conditions de travail et leur inclusion dans les régimes de sécurité sociale.Hamza Saghir, 30 ans, tousse sans relâche depuis des années. Son médecin lui a conseillé de trouver un nouvel emploi “loin de la poussière et de la chaleur”.Il rêve depuis longtemps de devenir chauffeur de taxi et de “construire une maison”. Mais avec son maigre salaire, il peut à peine subvenir aux besoins de sa famille de 15 personnes.Selon lui, il n’a pas le choix.”Je ne sais ni lire ni écrire. Je ne peux pas quitter mon travail.”

Trump aid cut imperils water scheme in scorching Pakistan city

In one of the world’s hottest cities, fresh and filtered water can quench the searing onslaught of climate change — but US President Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze threatens its vital supply, an NGO says.Pakistan’s sun-parched Jacobabad city in southern Sindh province sometimes surpasses 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in increasing heatwaves causing critical health problems like dehydration and heat-stroke.In 2012, USAID committed a $66 million grant to uplift Sindh’s municipal services, including the flagship renovation of a plant pumping and purifying water from a canal 22 kilometres (14 miles) away.But Pakistani non-profit HANDS says Trump’s aid embargo has blocked $1.5 million earmarked to make the scheme viable in the long-term, putting the project at risk “within a few months”.”This has transformed our lives,” 25-year-old Tufail Ahmed told AFP in Jacobabad, where wintertime temperatures are already forecast to pass 30C next week.”If the water supply is cut off it will be very difficult for us,” he added. “Survival will be challenging, as water is the most essential thing for life.”Between September and mid-January Sindh saw rainfall 52 percent below average according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, with “moderate drought” predicted in the coming months.Heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent due to climate change, scientists say.- Services withdrawn – The project pipes in 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million litres) daily and serves about 350,000 people in Jacobabad, HANDS says — a city where grinding poverty is commonplace.HANDS said it discovered Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign assistance through media reports with no prior warning.”Since everything is just suspended we have to withdraw our staff and we have to withdraw all services for this water project,” HANDS CEO Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed told AFP.Forty-seven staff, including experts who manage the water purification and service the infrastructure, have been sent home.The service will likely stop functioning “within the next few months”, Ahmed predicted, and the project will be “a total failure” unless another funder steps in.The scheme is currently in the hands of the local government who lack the technical or revenue collection expertise HANDS was developing to fund the supply from bill payments, rather than donations.The international aid community has been in a tailspin over Trump’s campaign to downsize or dismantle swathes of the US government — led by his top donor and the world’s richest man Elon Musk.The most concentrated fire has been on Washington’s aid agency USAID, whose $42.8 billion budget represents 42 percent of humanitarian aid disbursed worldwide.But it accounts for only between 0.7 and 1.4 percent of total US government spending in the last quarter century, according to the Pew Research Center.Trump has claimed USAID is “run by radical lunatics” while Musk has described it as a “criminal organisation” needing to be put “through the woodchipper”.In Jacobabad, 47-year-old local social activist Abdul Ghani pleaded for its work to continue.”If the supply is cut off it will severely affect the public,” he said. “Poverty is widespread here and we cannot afford alternatives.”- ‘Supply cannot be stopped’ -Residents complain the Jacobabad supply is patchy but still describe it as an invaluable service in a city where the alternative is buying water from private donkey-drawn tankers.Eighteen-year-old student Noor Ahmed said before “our women had to walk for hours” to collect water. HANDS says the private tankers have a monthly cost of up to 10 times more than their rate of 500 rupees ($1.80) and often contain contaminants like arsenic. “The dirty water we used to buy was harmful to our health and falling ill would cost us even more,” said 55-year-old Sadruddin Lashari.”This water is clean. The supply cannot be stopped,” he added.Pakistan — home to more than 240 million people — ranks as the nation most affected by climate change, according to non-profit Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index released this year and analysing data from 2022.That year a third of the country was inundated by unprecedented monsoon floods killing more than 1,700 and causing an estimated $14.9 billion in damages after a punishing summer heatwave.Jacobabad’s water system also suffered heavy damage in the 2010 floods which killed almost 1,800 and affected 21 million.Pakistan produces less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say are driving human-made climate change.Islamabad has consistently called for countries which emit more to contribute to aid for its population suffering on the front line of climate change.”It’s incredibly hot here year-round,” said Lashari. “We need water constantly.” 

US sends migrants from Guantanamo to Venezuela

The United States deported 177 migrants from its military base in Guantanamo, Cuba to their homeland in Venezuela Thursday, the latest sign of cooperation between the long-feuding governments. Officials in Washington and Caracas confirmed that a plane left the US base and deposited the 177 people in Honduras, where they were picked up by the Venezuelan government. The deportees then left for Venezuela on a flag carrier Conviasa flight that arrived in Maiquetia late Thursday.Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello received the all-male group of deportees at the airport, telling them: “Welcome to the homeland.” “Those who returned, in theory, are all Venezuelans who were in Guantanamo,” Cabello told journalists, adding that another deportation flight was expected to arrive at the end of the week.The carefully choreographed operation would have seemed impossible just weeks ago when the United States accused President Nicolas Maduro of stealing an election. But since President Donald Trump entered office four weeks ago, relations have thawed, with the White House prioritizing immigration cooperation. Maduro said the handover was at the “direct request” of his government to that of Trump.”We have rescued 177 new migrants from Guantanamo,” he said at an official event.Trump envoy Richard Grenell traveled to Caracas on January 31 and met Maduro, who is the subject of a $25 million US bounty for his arrest. Grenell brokered the release of six US prisoners. A day later Trump announced Venezuela had agreed to accept illegal migrants deported from the United States. – ‘Recovered’ -Venezuela said it had “requested the repatriation of a group of compatriots who were unjustly taken to the Guantanamo naval base.””This request has been accepted and the citizens have been transferred to Honduras, from where they will be recovered,” the government said in a statement. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed they had transported “177 Venezuelan illegal aliens from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras today for pickup by the Venezuelan government.”Caracas broke off ties with Washington in January 2019 after The United States recognized then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president” following 2018 elections that were widely rejected as neither free nor fair. In October 2023, Maduro allowed US planes with deported migrants to fly into Venezuela but withdrew permission four months later. His government has been flying free or subsidized repatriation flights for Venezuelans wishing to return home. Venezuela is keen to end crippling US sanctions and to move beyond the controversy over elections last July that the United States and numerous other countries said were won by the opposition. The contested election results sparked protests in which at least 28 people were killed and about 200 injured, with 2,400 arrests.Human rights groups in the United States have sued to gain access to migrants held in Guantanamo after Trump ordered the base to prepare to receive some 30,000 people who entered the United States without papers.Guantanamo is synonymous with abuses against terror suspects held there after the September 11 attacks. The United States on Thursday deported another group of 135 migrants of various nationalities — including 65 children — to Costa Rica, from where they will be repatriated to their home countries, including China, Russia, Afghanistan, Ghana and Vietnam, the government in San Jose said.Costa Rica, along with Panama, is serving as a way station for migrants deported by Trump’s government. 

Just 17% of Japan citizens hold passport, data shows

Only around one in six Japanese citizens hold valid passports, fresh data has shown, with the number of residents travelling abroad slowly recovering but still below pre-pandemic levels.The latest rate is far below the half of Americans with passports, a level that has soared from around five percent in 1990.As of December 2024, there were 21.6 million valid Japanese passports in circulation, representing around 17.5 percent of the overall population, the foreign ministry said Thursday.Before the Covid-19 pandemic, about a quarter of Japanese people owned valid passports.The country’s travel document is tied with neighbour South Korea’s passport as the world’s second strongest after Singapore, allowing visa-free entry to 190 destinations, according to this year’s Henley Passport Index.Outbound travel from Japan has gradually resumed after the quarantine measures and border closures of the pandemic era, according to the ministry.But the weakness of the yen — which has shed a third of its value in the past five years — is one factor deterring Japanese travellers along with inflation and a renewed interest in domestic travel, analysts say.The new data comes as the nation welcomes a record influx of tourists from other countries, with more than 36 million visits recorded last year and many flocking to hotspots like Kyoto.International travel by Japanese nationals began to increase sharply in the boom years of the late 1980s.In 1990, more than 10 million people from Japan travelled abroad, a figure that rose to 20 million before the pandemic. This year around 14.1 million Japanese are expected to travel abroad, according to top Japanese travel agency JTB.”In recent years, the rapid depreciation of the yen has caused some to refrain from overseas travel, but once the currency market calms, overseas travel is expected to pick up steam,” said its study, issued in January.