Iraq: Gangs Accused of Poisoning Local Supplies of Fishhttps://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2485571/iraq-gangs-accused-poisoning-local-supplies-fish
Iraq: Gangs Accused of Poisoning Local Supplies of Fish
An Iraqi fisherman makes his way through dead fish and plants in the Delmaj marsh, east of the city of Diwaniyah, in Iraq's southern province on August 25, 2020. (Photo by Hayder INDHAR / AFP)
Iraq: Gangs Accused of Poisoning Local Supplies of Fish
An Iraqi fisherman makes his way through dead fish and plants in the Delmaj marsh, east of the city of Diwaniyah, in Iraq's southern province on August 25, 2020. (Photo by Hayder INDHAR / AFP)
Poisoned water, illegal dams and even armed clashes: these days, fishing for precious barbels in Iraq's majestic river marshes involves navigating precarious waters.
For centuries, civilizations in southern Iraq have made a living from farming and fishing the whiskered, carp-like fish native to the twin Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Hussein Serhan is a proud descendant of one such family. Like his father and grandfather before him, the 70-year-old has spent his life on the riverbeds of Diwaniyah province, AFP reported.
Season after season, he carefully scoured vast stretches of water for schools of the ray-finned barbels he calls his "children."
This year, he didn't have to look far.
Thousands of tons floated up to the surface of the wetland -- dead.
"It's an ecological disaster," Serhan told AFP.
"We lost all our revenues. We need years to recover."
The causes of the mass premature deaths remain unclear, but marsh-based fishermen have some theories.
"Gangs," said Hussein Ali, 37, who fishes on another bank of the 325-square kilometer al-Delmaj marsh, in neighboring Wasit province.
Ali and others blame groups with alleged links to fish importers for poisoning local supplies, although they did not specify what substance may have been used.
"They have also installed dams along rivulets that feed the marshes, which means water levels drop," Ali added.
He said anyone who tries to remove the dams, installed to horde water levels and fish stocks, is threatened.
"More than 2,000 families live off fishing in al-Delmaj. We don't know how to do anything else," Ali said.
It's not Iraq's first riverine disaster: in 2018, fish farmers alleged their stocks were poisoned after millions of carp, used in the national dish masgoof, died.
In March 2019, a United Nations probe put the cause down to the Koi Herpes Virus, saying overstocking and low-quality river water likely furthered its spread.
This year, a preliminary study by the agriculture ministry ruled out any viral or bacterial cause, so allegations of foul play are again floating to the surface.
In June, Iraq's water ministry said its employees were shot at as they tried to remove illegal dams.
Then, in early August, a local fishing tribe clashed with an armed group that had allegedly erected some dams.
Furious locals accuse both federal and provincial authorities of failing to secure the marshes.
"Where is the state in all this? Where are they as these disasters threaten to annihilate our fish?" said Ali.
Iraq's Agriculture Minister Mohammed al-Khafaji said an investigation had begun.
"We are determined to reveal the perpetrators to the public," he said.
One speculative theory swirling among Iraqis is that Turkish and Iranian companies that usually import seafood stocks into Iraq had paid people to deliberately poison the marshes or disrupt water flows.
The alleged motive? Concerns that Iraqi consumers were opting for increasingly cheap barbels, squeezing the imported seafood out of the market.
Barbels are typically sold to neighboring Gulf countries but this year, with borders closed for months due to COVID-19, the whiskered fish flooded local markets.
Iraqis have opted for these affordable domestic catches, stacked high in wooden stalls, instead of imported fish.
"We were self-sufficient this year and imports stopped, which frustrated others. That's why they did this," said Khafaji, declining to be more specific.
Imad al-Makrud, who farms barbels in Al-Delmaj, noted that domestic demand had indeed swelled.
"We lowered our prices to sell. The kilo dropped from 10,000 Iraqi dinars to 2,000 (just over $1.50)," he said.
"Iran and Turkey, the main exporters of fish to Iraq, lost a lot of money," said Makrud.
The marshes are home to rich flora and fauna, migrant birds and huge water buffalo, whose milk is made into a creamy cheese eaten at Iraqi breakfasts.
Hassan al-Rusha, a buffalo herder in Wasit, said poisoned waters killed 50 of his flock and caused more than 135 miscarriages of pregnant buffalo.
"I've never seen anything like it," he told AFP.
The losses are heavy for his village, which relied on just over 3,000 water buffalo to earn a living.
And there could be long-lasting damage to the marshlands' biological diversity, warned Diwaniyah's environmental commissioner Raghad Abdessada.
"This environmental catastrophe that took place will affect the region's economy and the people who are living off this work," she told AFP.
Here’s What to Watch as Election Day Approaches in the UShttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5078014-here%E2%80%99s-what-watch-election-day-approaches-us
People cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the general election in Michigan at the Livingston Educational Service Agency in Howell, Michigan on November 3, 2024. (AFP)
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Here’s What to Watch as Election Day Approaches in the US
People cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the general election in Michigan at the Livingston Educational Service Agency in Howell, Michigan on November 3, 2024. (AFP)
Election Day is nearly upon us. In a matter of hours, the final votes in the 2024 presidential election will be cast.
In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true toss-up between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
We know there are seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, barring a major surprise. But major questions persist about the timing of the results, the makeup of the electorate, the influx of misinformation — even the possibility of political violence. At the same time, both sides are prepared for a protracted legal battle that could complicate things further.
Here's what to watch on the eve of Election Day 2024:
History will be made either way
Given all the twists and turns in recent months, it's easy to overlook the historical significance of this election.
Harris would become the first female president in the United States' 248-year history. She would also be the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to hold the office. Harris and her campaign have largely played down gender and race fearing that they might alienate some supporters. But the significance of a Harris win would not be lost on historians.
A Trump victory would represent a different kind of historical accomplishment. He would become the first person convicted of a felony elected to the US presidency, having been convicted of 34 felony counts in a New York hush-money case little more than five months ago.
Trump, who is still facing felony charges in at least two separate criminal cases, argued that he is the victim of a politicized justice system. And tens of millions of voters apparently believe him — or they're willing to overlook his extraordinary legal baggage.
US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Michigan State University's Jenison Field House in East Lansing, Michigan, on November 3, 2024. (AFP)
How long will it take to know the winner? Election Day in the United States is now often considered election week as each state follows its own rules and practices for counting ballots — not to mention the legal challenges — that can delay the results. But the truth is, nobody knows how long it will take for the winner to be announced this time.
In 2020, The Associated Press declared President Joe Biden the winner on Saturday afternoon — four days after polls closed. But even then, The AP called North Carolina for Trump 10 days after Election Day and Georgia for Biden 16 days later after hand recounts.
Four years earlier, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed. The AP declared Trump the winner on election night at 2:29 a.m. (it was technically Wednesday morning on the East Coast).
This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close across the seven swing states that are expected to decide the election, barring a major surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The size of the map and the tightness of the race make it hard to predict when a winner could be declared.
Where can I find early clues about how the contest might unfold? Look to two East Coast battleground states, North Carolina and Georgia, where the results could come in relatively quickly. That doesn't mean we'll get the final results in those states quickly if the returns are close, but they are the first swing states that might offer a sense of what kind of night we're in for.
To go deeper, look to urban and suburban areas in the industrial North and Southeast, where Democrats have made gains since 2020.
In North Carolina, Harris’ margins in Wake and Mecklenburg Counties, home to the state capital of Raleigh and the state’s largest city, Charlotte, respectively, will reveal how much Trump will need to squeeze out of the less-populated rural areas he has dominated.
In Pennsylvania, Harris needs heavy turnout in deep blue Philadelphia, but she's also looking to boost the Democrats’ advantage in the arc of suburban counties to the north and west of the city. She has campaigned aggressively in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden improved on Clinton’s 2016 winning margins. The Philadelphia metro area, including the four collar counties, accounts for 43 percent of Pennsylvania’s vote.
Elsewhere in the Blue Wall, Trump needs to blunt Democratic growth in Michigan's key suburban counties outside of Detroit, especially Oakland County. He faces the same challenge in Wisconsin's Waukesha County outside of Milwaukee.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pumps his fist after speaking at the end of a campaign rally at Atrium Health Amphitheater in Macon, Georgia, on November 3, 2024. (AFP)
Where are the candidates? Trump will likely spend the very early hours of Election Day in Michigan, where he is scheduled to hold a final late-night rally in Grand Rapids as has become his tradition.
The Republican candidate plans to spend the rest of the day in Florida, where he is expected to vote in person -- despite previously saying he would vote early. He's scheduled to hold a campaign watch party in Palm Beach Tuesday night.
Harris plans to attend an Election Night party at Howard University in Washington, a historically Black university where she graduated with a degree in economics and political science in 1986 and was an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Aside from Howard, she has no public schedule announced for Election Day.
Harris said Sunday that she had “just filled out” her mail-in ballot and it was “on its way to California.”
Who's left to show up on Election Day? On the eve of Election Day, it's unclear which voters will show up to cast ballots on Tuesday.
More than 77 million people participated in early voting — either in person or through the mail. So many people already cast ballots that some officials say the polls in states like Georgia might be a “ghost town” on Election Day.
One major reason for the surge is that that Trump has generally encouraged his supporters to vote early this time, a reversal from 2020 when he called on Republicans to vote only in-person on Election Day. The early vote numbers confirm that millions of Republicans have heeded Trump's call in recent weeks.
The key question, however, is whether the surge of Republicans who voted early this time will ultimately cannibalize the number of Republicans who show up on Tuesday.
There are also shifts on the Democratic side. Four years ago, as the pandemic lingered, Democrats overwhelmingly cast their ballots early. But this time around, without the public health risk, it's likely that more Democrats will show up in person on Election Day.
That balance on both sides is critical as we try to understand the early returns. And it's on the campaigns to know which voters they still need to turn out on Tuesday. On that front, Democrats may have an advantage.
Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee have outsourced much of their get-out-the-vote operation to outside groups, including one funded largely by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk that’s facing new questions about its practices. Harris’ campaign, by contrast, is running a more traditional operation that features more than 2,500 paid staffers and 357 offices in battleground states alone.
Chocolate bars with the faces of Democratic presidential nominee US Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump are displayed at a store in John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, US, October 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Could there be unrest? Trump has been aggressively promoting baseless claims in recent days questioning the integrity of the election. He falsely insists that he can lose only if Democrats cheat, even as polls show that show the race is a true toss-up.
Trump could again claim victory on election night regardless of the results, just as he did in 2020.
Such rhetoric can have serious consequences as the nation saw when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in one of the darkest days in modern American history. And unfortunately, there is still a potential of further violence this election season.
The Republican National Committee will have thousands of “election integrity” poll monitors in place on Tuesday searching for any signs of fraud, which critics fear could lead to harassment of voters or election workers. In some key voting places, officials have requested the presence of sheriff deputies in addition to bulletproof glass and panic buttons that connect poll managers to a local 911 dispatcher.
At the same time, Trump allies note that he has faced two assassination attempts in recent months that raise the possibility of further threats against him. And police in Washington and other cities are preparing for the possibility of serious Election Day unrest.
As always, it's worth noting that a broad coalition of top government and industry officials, many of them Republicans, found that the 2020 election was the “most secure” in American history.”
