UN exodus pinches East Timor economy

Dili Beach Hotel - Photo: www.shortwayround.co.uk 

By Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo (AFP) – 18 hours ago  

DILI — East Timor is readying to stand on its own feet as international forces withdraw by the year-end. But for some in the 10-year-old nation, one of the poorest in Asia, the exodus also comes at a steep price.

The bars and restaurants on "the avenida" that runs along the coast of the capital Dili are now lonely haunts with the odd NGO worker or energy company representative dropping in.

The nightly roar of helicopters on patrol has subsided, while the UN's four-wheel drives that once packed the Avenida are replaced by old sedans and ramshackle yellow taxis looking to pick up Timorese for a $2 flat rate.

"Not many UN people come to our bar and restaurant anymore," Dili Beach Hotel manager Domi Riu told AFP.

The bar-restaurant alone used to take in $2,000 a day, but since peacekeepers began withdrawing in large numbers last month, it is lucky to make $500.

Sixteen UN workers once occupied the hotel's most expensive rooms, between $700 and $1,500 a month, but today only five rooms are filled and the hotel may be empty by December 31, when all 1,200 peacekeepers will have returned home.

"We have three options: cut the number of staff, cut their hours or go out of business," Riu said.

On Saturday, Portugal withdrew the bulk of its police, may of whom employed drivers and maids who will have to find new jobs. Some 850 Timorese UN staff and around 1,300 security guards will also be dismissed, according to the UN.

The UN said it was running a training program that involved more than 90 percent of its employees and it hoped the mission had given local staff an opportunity for professional development.

"We see pretty good prospects for our professional officers, who have really advanced their skills and experience here," the UN mission's chief of staff Gary Gray said.

"It may be a little more problematic for what you might call the unskilled part of the labour force -- the cleaners, the drivers and the security guards. It's going to be a lot tougher for them."

Francisco Moniz, who has been working as a driver for the UN since 2000, said he was looking for work and expected to make less than the $570 monthly salary he has become accustomed to.

"The money I get from the UN is enough for our daily needs, including paying for my children's school fees," the 40-year-old with four children said.

"But I'm happy that our country is trying to develop. East Timor is stable now so it's a good thing the UN is leaving."

The UN entered the territory after violence broke out in 1999 following the resounding "yes" vote for independence from neighbouring Indonesia.

Unemployment is 18.4 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook, but the percentage of young Timorese without a job is more than 40 percent, AusAID reported recently.

While industries that cater to foreigners will be hardest hit -- from bars and hotels to high-end real estate -- the overall economy in real terms will be little affected.

The UN reports its mission contributed around $40 million to GDP of around $1 billion last year.

The impoverished half-island nation has bigger economic hurdles to leap, chiefly how to wean the nation off the energy reserves that have fattened its GDP and government coffers in recent years but are fast depleting.

Almost half of East Timor's population of 1.1 million lives below the poverty line, the World Bank reports, and the nation grapples with widespread malnutrition and high maternal and child mortality rates.

But many in the half-island nation that celebrated a decade of formal independence this year feel ready to take back the reins to combat the social woes that are hindering development.

"It's time for the Timorese people to govern ourselves and not depend on the UN," said Riu, the Dili Beach Hotel manager.

"We want to show the world that we can lead ourselves."

Foreign ministers discuss Timor-Leste's application to join ASEAN

Timorese Minister for Foreign Affairs Jose Luis Guterres and his SIngaporean Counterpart K. Shanmugam in Dili - CNA

DILI: Singapore's Foreign Minister K Shanmugam and Timor-Leste's Foreign Minister Jose Luis Guterres have exchanged views on Timor-Leste's application for ASEAN membership.

At the meeting, Mr Shanmugam informed Mr Guterres that the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group (ACCWG) has been established to consider new membership applications.

A Foreign Ministry statement said two meetings of the ACCWG have been held so far, and Singapore has offered to host the third meeting in early 2013 to help move the process forward.

Mr Guterres informed Mr Shanmugam that Timor-Leste is looking into its capacity to fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of ASEAN membership - a development that Singapore welcomes.

Mr Shanmugam also reiterated Singapore's support for Timor-Leste's development through providing technical assistance and training to help build up Timor-Leste's human resources capabilities.

The statement said Singapore has trained close to 400 Timorese officials in various fields, including civil aviation, English language, finance, healthcare and public administration.

Mr Shanmugam visited Timor-Leste from 20 to 21 November 2012.

- CNA/de

Timor's Finance Minister leads call for greater control over foreign aid programs

Catherine McGrath & staff

Posted Thu Nov 22, 2012 11:04pm AEDT

VIDEO: Timor leads call for better aid delivery (ABC News)

MAP: East Timor

East Timor's Finance Minister wants her country and other post-conflict nations around the world to gain greater control over foreign aid programs.

Emilia Pires is chair of the G7-Plus Group of Fragile States - a grouping of 18 nations that are emerging out of conflict, including Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Solomon Islands and several in Africa.

G7-Plus is promoting the idea of a "New Deal" between aid donors and recipient states that would ensure aid is delivered in a responsible way to these countries.

The global financial crisis has led many nations to question aid spending while recipient countries often argue that aid offered is not appropriate and not well targeted.

Ms Pires spoke about G7-Plus's New Deal while delivering the Harold Mitchell Development Policy Lecture at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"We wanted to end the monologue spoken at us and promote a dialogue spoken with us both globally and locally," she said.

Ms Pires also asked Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr for Canberra's assistance in the development of trade skills for East Timorese.

"Mostly donors believe that is a very expensive program, the vocational training," she says.

"However, it is a fact that is a critical element in getting countries out of crisis."

Ex-East Timor Leader Jose Ramos-Horta on the Challenges Facing Asia

Elderly people in a crowd in Zhengzhou. Inset: Dr. Jose Ramos Horta. Source: www.thedailybeast.com

Nov 10, 2012 4:45 AM EST

Is the 21st the Asian Century? Former East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta says no­the continent is being dragged down by ethnic tensions, environmental degradation, and an aging population.

Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel laureate and former president of East Timor, was scheduled to address the Asia Society about peace-building in Asia when Hurricane Sandy crashed the party. He spoke with The Daily Beast about why this isn’t the Asian Century, why the United States remains unchallenged on the world stage, and how aging populations will destabilize China and Japan.There’s been a lot written in the last few years about how we’re now in the “ Asian Century.” How do you see the state of Asia today?I hold a view contrary to many scholars, who are in my view overly optimistic about the so-called Rising Asia. I believe that the Asia region­although very promising, and [which] has grown in terms of economics, development, with hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty in the last four decades­remains the most dangerous and unstable region of the world by the mere fact that it is the most nuclearized region in terms of the number of countries possessing weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, China, not to mention those that could quickly acquire nuclear weapons if they were forced to. Asia also has some of the most intractable border disputes over which many countries in the area have gone to war in the past. We also have some of the most intractable ethnic and religious tensions that time and again flare up, with thousands killed in a matter of days when they flare up. Not to mention the challenges of an overcrowded region that has put enormous pressure on resources. We have one of the most environmentally degraded regions in the world by sheer pressure of human activities.
So in view of all of this, I’m surprised, perplexed, at how some are talking about how the 21st century is the Asian Century.

What are some of the most pressing population-related issues facing Asia?Asia’s own success­in Japan, China, Korea­has caused also a phenomenon that was recently only seen in Europe, and that’s the aging population. I often have told my Chinese friends: “You cannot be a superpower of old people. You cannot fight wars on wheelchairs.” And can one imagine in the next 20 or 30 years, 300 million, 500 million Chinese over the age 80? How they are going to support them?

And the U.S. remains very much unchallenged partly because of its young population. Why does it continue to have a relatively young population? Because it has a much more open-door policy toward migration. Millions of people from all over the world migrate to United States over the years, settle here, breed here, and rejuvenate the country.

The more so-called ethnically homogenous societies, like Japan, South Korea, are far more closed to anyone who does not belong to their racial ethnic stock. So they have not been able to compensate for the loss of population through aging with new people.
And the U.S., because of what it is­a country born and built by migrants, very open, very creative­I find it very difficult for anyone in the world to match it. But does that mean that Asia is condemned to be aging and powerless? Of course not, but when we talk about Asia, we cannot talk as if we talk about a unified Asia. Rivalries are there for all to see.

Is there any leadership in Asia today that can move toward unity?

No, there is no one in Asia that can do that. In their own respective regions, there are some with a lot of prestige now, like the president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He has presided over incredible transformation of Indonesia from the dictatorship of the past into vibrant democracy and vibrant economy, and he’s widely respected in Southeast Asia and in Asia for that. But to build bridges between, let’s say, China and Japan and Korea, to build bridges between China and India, he would find it incredibly difficult, next to impossible.

If the Chinese and Japanese populations continue aging as quickly as you have noted, eventually they have to reach some kind of tipping point. What would that look like?

I will be speaking in Japan end of November at three different universities, and I will be telling the Japanese, a country that I know well and have a lot of admiration for­I enjoy going to Japan­I will tell them that either you rejuvenate, procreate like God told us millions of years ago, or you die. We will see too many Japanese in wheelchairs and with robots performing duties for human beings, for the elderly.

That will happen in an even grander scale with China. The aging population is a serious security challenge, and I use the word “security challenge” in the sense that it can be incredibly destabilizing to this country because of the enormous resources they need to take care of the elderly. And yet they are not prepared.

Japan has had years of experience dealing with an aging population, and it’s not by coincidence that Japan has such advanced robot technology. When one visits Toyota factory, one is amazed how different it is today from what it was 50 years ago, and that’s partly because it doesn’t have manpower. If it did, it could use more human beings to create employment.

So Japan has to really think seriously, a bit like Singapore. Singapore is finding creative ways, sometimes even unusual ways, to entice families to have children. So that I see as a social and economic problem but also as a security problem.

Comemora massacre 12 de Novembro 1991

Monumento Masacre 12 de Novembro 1991. Photo: Natanael Lobato

Em homenagem e honra aos sacrificios dos jovems Timorense. Os seus sofrimentos, coragem e vida fique sempre nos coracoes do povo Timorense.

Young, Hopeless Europeans Flock to Former Colonies

Strike in Portugal. Photo: unemployment in Portugal

By: Liza Jansen, special for CNBC.com

Rather than wait for prosperous economic times to return to her native Portugal, Tatiana Almeida (26), educated to be a journalist, decided to leave and move to East Timor, a former colony in Southeast Asia, in search for opportunities.

“There’s a big, dark cloud hanging over Portugal. (…) There is no real future for my generation,” Almeida told CNBC.

Instead, she bought a ticket to Dili, the capital of East Timor. Two weeks after she arrived she found a job as a communication consultant in a museum in East Timor.

“I found hope in East Timor,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to Portugal any time soon.”

Almeida is just one of many citizens from debt-choked European countries moving overseas, particularly to former colonies, in search of a better future.

As youth unemployment in Europe continues to rise, young Spaniards are leaving for Latin America and Miami in the U.S., where the Spanish speaking community outnumbers English speakers; Portuguese are heading to Brazil, Angola and East Timor; and young Irish and Greeks are opting for Australia, which has large diaspora communities from these two countries.

(read more: Euro Zone Unemployment Hits New High, Inflation Eases)

Numbers from Europe’s statistics agency captures the migration that is under way. 

The number of 20- to 29-year-olds fell by 8.8 percent year-on-year in Ireland, by 4.3 percent in Spain and by 3.5 percent in Portugal in the second quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat data.

Earlier this year, Laszlo Andor, the European Employment Commissioner, also called on unemployed youth in the European Union to consider opportunities across the border: “If we want to create more opportunities for the young people, we have to create and highlight … opportunities in other countries.”

Compared to 2009, the number of short-term arrivals of Greek citizens in Australia are up 21 percent to about 4,000 people between May and November 2011, according to Australia’s statistics bureau.

Numbers from Ireland’s Central Statistics office in April showed that more than 3,000 Irish are leaving the country each month, the highest number since the famine between 1845 and 1852. According to the Economic and Social Research Institute, net emigration out of Ireland is expected to be 100,000 over 2011 and 2012, with Australia listed as the primary destination.

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho last year expressed his desperation about the situation in his country, and said that the only solution to soaring youth unemployment was for the ‘lost generation’, as the young are increasingly called, to emigrate.

He suggested they to go to “Angola, and not just Angola,” and highlighted the great teaching void in Brazil.

The Portuguese seem to be following up on that advice as the government reported that the Portuguese population in Brazil increased 20 percent between 2010 and 2011.

On the other hand, Brazilians themselves no longer seek better opportunities abroad, the numbers show. From 2005 to 2010, the number of Brazilians living abroad dropped from an estimated 4 million to 2 million as a result of Brazil’s booming economy, according to the country’s Ministry of Justice.

The number of Spaniards emigrating to Latin America in 2011 stood at a rough 370,000, about 10 times more than before the economy started to tank in 2008, according to Reuters.

(read more: Reversal of Fortunes Sends Spaniards to Latin America)

"Spain is losing an entire generation," Alexis Cogul LLeonart, a 30-year old Spanish architect, told CNBC.

LLeonart set up his own architecture firm in Spain in 2008, but soon after Spain’s housing crisis hit.

"In less than 6 months, 9 out of 10 projects I was working on were put on hold. All clients were sending the same message: 'We don't know what is going to happen so we have to wait and we can't pay now'," Lleonart said.

As it became clear that the situation in Spain was "more about survival than about opportunity," Lleonart said he couldn't choose the professional goals he wanted to pursue. So he packed his bags and moved to Miami, Florida, where he is now setting up a new firm Cogal Architecture.

Although he is still working around the clock as he was doing in Spain, he is hopeful. "In the U.S. I can actually pursue opportunities and grow as an architect, something that wasn't possible in Spain," he said.

Finado or All souls day in Timor Leste

Kari aifunan iha Cruz boot - Santa Cruz.  Photo: Isolino vas