HIV Epidemic In Eastern Europe And Central Asia

Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the only parts of the world where the HIV epidemic remains clearly on the rise, a new UNICEF report states.

PM Thompson To Take Time Off

Prime Minister David Thompson will be taking two months leave from his national responsibilities and could be heading for major surgery.

Mandelas Finalise Funeral Plans For Zenani

The car in which Nelson Mandela’s great-granddaughter Zenani died last week was driven by the son of the boyfriend of one of the former president’s daughters, the family revealed on Sunday.

China Farmer Uses Cannon To Fight Eviction

A farmer in central China has turned his home into a fort equipped with a homemade cannon and fireworks to fight off government eviction in an ongoing land dispute, state media said Wednesday.

Indonesia’s Smoking Toddler Cuts Back To 15-a-day

A chain-smoking Indonesian toddler has cut back to 15 cigarettes a day thanks to “therapy focused on playing”, a child welfare official said Tuesday.

Cameron: “I Will Enpower UK Jews”

David Cameron this week (Thursday5th April 2010) insisted a Conservative government would do “much more to protect and empower the Jewish community” and described learning about his Jewish ancestors as one of the highlights of his year.

Israel Attacks Gaza Aid Fleet

Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country’s siege on Gaza.

Israel Vows To Block Aid Ships To Gaza

Israeli authorities have warned that they would block a contingent of aid ships carrying construction materials and humanitarian supplies for the people of Gaza.

PM David Thompson Not Well

Prime Minister David Thompson is ailing and in recent weeks, has undergone tests in Barbados and New York to identify the cause of the illness.

Russian Court Sentences Two Men For Killing Cooking And Eating Schoolgirl

A Russian court sentenced two men to prison for the killing and cannibalism of a school girl.

Castro’s Sister Worked For CIA

The younger sister of Fidel and Raul Castro, Juanita Castro, collaborated with the US Central Intelligence Agency against her brothers’ rule in Cuba before going into exile in Miami in 1964, she said on Sunday.

Juanita Castro, 76, who has not spoken to either of her brothers for more than four decades, made the revelation to the Spanish-language TV channel Univision-Noticias 23 on the eve of the publication of her memoirs about Fidel and Raul Castro.

The book in Spanish entitled Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History, co-written with Mexican journalist Maria Antonieta Collins, is being published on Monday.

Peparing For The Real Pandemic

The below article was published on September 20 2009 on www.hiddenfromhistory.org.

Last week, many of the aboriginal people in the remote west coast village of Ahousaht were innoculated with the tamiflu vaccine. Today, over a hundred of them are sick, and the sickness is spreading.

 In the same week, body bags were sent to similarly remote native reserves in northern Manitoba that have also received the tamiflu vaccine. On the face of things, it appears that flu vaccinations are causing a sickness that is being deliberately aimed at aboriginal people across Canada, and this sickness will be fatal: a fact acknowledged by the Canadian government by their “routine” sending of body bags to these Indian villages.

Britain Violating Human Rights Of Innocent African Caribbean Men

Black church, community and civic leaders in Britain are outraged over the British Home Office preservation of genetic profiles of innocent African Caribbean persons, which are currently held on that country’s  national criminal DNA database.

This is in flagrant violation of the European Court on Human Rights, which ruled in December 2008 that the Home Office’s current practice of retaining the genetic profiles of innocent citizens contravenes the Human Rights Act.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK Government was acting unlawfully by retaining the DNA profiles, samples and fingerprints of innocent people indefinitely.

Bajan Woman Became Stranded In Nigeria For 45 Years By Conman

Meet Gwendolyn Joseph. An octogenarian of 87 years. A Barbadian who left these shores 45 years ago to persue her dreams as a  nurse and render humanitarian works in community health and missionary work in developing countries.

And so begins her story.

“I am from Barbados in the West Indies. My parents were very rich. My father, Joseph Hackett, was a Salvador in the West Indies. I tell you, my parents were really wealthy and Barbados is a small but beautiful country.”

“I told my mom that I wanted to be a nurse so that I could care for people. I also said I would not marry because if I did, I would not be able to cater for people,” she said.

Speaking to a reporter from Nigeria newspaper, Punch, Miss Joseph described how she was tricked into giving over her life savings to a swindler. One can see the track record of Nigerians conning people goes wayyyyyyyyyy back.

“I actually wanted to go to Kenya because my grand-parents were working there as missionaries,” she said. “The man met me in London and told me that lots of missionary works were going on in Nigeria and that white missionaries were on ground. He said I could join them, but it would require heavy funding. I returned to Barbados to gather more money,” she said.

Besides her personal savings, she also mustered what she could from the fortune her late father left behind and handed everything over to the man. “I did not know that he was looking for money to build a family house in Ibadan,” she said.

Joseph therefore left her family, friends and acquaintances in Barbados and Britain in 1963 and came to Nigeria. But what she thought was dream come true became a nightmare.

“I was so disappointed when I got to Ibadan and discovered that there were no missionaries on ground. The man was a rogue. What surprised me was that he pretended that he was a Christian.”

Granted she was gullible. Granted she had a soft heart which made her a prime target for the Yorubaman.

Her life’s saving and her share of her father inheritance went to building a house for the man’s family instead . But Gwendolyn found out the hard way. Conmen will say and do anything to rob you blind.

“Why are they like that? I have also discovered that Nigerians like money a lot. Where are they carrying it to? Tell me,” she queried.

Tell me about it. I haven’t receive any spam from them lately but I promised to post some emails from these dubious characters who always have a sorry tale to tell. And to think we are planning on forging links with Nigeria in relation to airlifts and tourism???????. Well, well, well. But hey folks, not to worry, as grandma will say, God does take care of he own. Such is the position with Gwendolyn. She hasn’t seen Barbados since leaving here four decades ago but hey she still remember her brith place as being beautiful. Plus her nieces/ nephews call her once in a while to see how their dear aunt is doing.

Asked where she would like to be buried when she passes on, she replied, “Only God knows.”

FULL STORY

Deadly Food Crisis Grips Haiti

The 5-year-old teetered on broomstick legs – he weighed less than 20 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk. Nearby, a 4-year-old girl hung from a strap attached to a scale, her wide eyes lifeless, her emaciated arms dangling weakly.

In pockets of Haiti accessible only by donkey or foot, children are dying of malnutrition, their already meager food supply cut by a series of devastating storms that destroyed crops, wiped out livestock, and sent food prices spiraling.

At least 26 severely malnourished children have died in the past four weeks in the remote region of Baie d’Orange, in southeast Haiti, aid workers said last week, and there are fears the toll will rise much higher if help does not come quickly to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Another 65 severely malnourished children are being treated in makeshift tent clinics in the mountainous area, or at hospitals they were brought to in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, said Max Cosci, who heads the Belgian contingent of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.

One evacuee, a 7-year-old girl, died while being treated.

“The situation is extremely, extremely fragile and dangerous,” Cosci said.

At a makeshift malnutrition ward at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the capital, 10 emaciated children were under emergency care Thursday, their stomachs swollen and their hair faded by pigmentation loss. Several had the puffy faces typical of kwashiorkor, a protein-deficiency disorder.

Five-year-old Mackenson Duclair, his ribs protruding and his legs little more than skin stretched over bones, weighed in at 19.8 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk Doctors said he needed to gain another 5 pounds before he could go home.

Mackenson’s grandmother, who has raised him since his mother died, said she barely has a can of corn grits to feed herself, the boy, and her 8-year-old granddaughter each day. “These things did not happen when I was growing up,” Ticouloute Fortune said.

Rural families already struggling with soaring food prices in Haiti lost their safety nets when fields were destroyed and livestock wiped out by the storms, which killed nearly 800 people and caused $1 billion of damage in August and September.

UN World Food Program country director Myrta Kaulard said she fears more deaths from malnutrition in other isolated parts of Haiti, and search teams were fanning out in the northwest and along the southwestern peninsula to check.

The World Food Program has sent more than 30 tons of food aid – enough to feed 5,800 people for two weeks – into the remote southeastern region since September, and other groups funded by the US Agency for International Development have sent food as well, Kaulard said.

But the steep, narrow paths and poor visibility make it difficult to deliver the food to the mountain communities, where hunger is worsening. In one case, a truck struggling up a hill flipped over and slid into a ravine, killing an aid worker.

The mountain villages have long suffered from hunger, growing only enough staples to feed themselves less than seven months out of the year, she said.

But families normally have enough to last through December. This year, Haiti’s agriculture ministry says 60 percent of the harvest was lost in the storms.

Source: The Boston Globe

Government Slow On Renewable Energy

Handel Callende (centre) explaining features of the new US$40 000 Byomatic 400 processor that can produce 200 gallons of biodiesel a day. Looking on are employees Parmeshwar Bissoon (left) and Teij Hutchinson. (Photo credit - The Nation)

 

 

We congratulate Hander Callender on his most incentive and promising venture. With a vision he took the bull by the horns and conceptualized a biodiesel operation, Native Sun NRG, with the primary purpose of reducing the costs of fuel to small business and vehicles owners.

Unlike some businesses that go begging to government for everything under the sun, a little exposure in the media landed him a deal with an American company with like interest resulting in a new company called Amelot Oil Barbados Ltd.

However as is usually the case, governments are always slow when it comes to these sort of things. By that I mean small man operations. The kind of thing that will made a different in people’s lives. Oh wait. No big dollars there. Never mind the the big speech on increasing the % of entrepreneurs in Barbados. A little encouragement goes a long way. Makes a man feel good. Expressing keen interest is not sufficient. Let’s hear publicly government endorsing of such a project and be serious on reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Anything short of that would give bajans the wrong impression!

BTW, did anyone close to Mr Callender read the article on the blog  or is the Nation just being facetious?

• Biodiesel Man Revving Up
• Can Barbadian Biodiesel Company Save Us From Rising Energy Bills?
• First Commercial Biodiesel Company In Barbados Off To A Start
• Biodiesel Company Sucessful Trial = 100gals Refined Biodiesel

Ten Day Countdown To 2008 Olympics Games Chinese Police Increases Crackdown On “Hostile Forces”

    As athletes, officials and journalists begin pouring into Beijing to prepared for the 2008 Summer Olympics games [which will also be held in six other hosts cities], China police continued their massive crackdown on any and everyone  considered hostile and who poses any serious threat or  embassrement for China.

From websites to chat rooms, from blogs to video-sharing sites, Chinese authorities are cracking down on persons who dare to pass on information to foreign journalists or post incriminating evidence on weblogs. Such persons are sometimes charged with defamation or divulging state secrets laws or keep under house arrest. Chinese authorities have deployed 100,000 police, 200,000 security guards and neighbour committees to spy on their neighbours for the Chinese Communists Party in an effort to monitor and silence activists who regularly highlight human rights issues or report on forbidden news not reveal by the official news agency Xinhua.

The Reporters Without Borders  who are advocates against  the Olympic Games being awarded to Beijing in 2001, lists nine things on its website that Chinese authorities must do before the Beijing Olympics Games. These includes

1. Releasing all journalists and Internet users detained in China for exercising their right to information.
2. Ending the jamming of foreign radio stations.
3. Ending the blocking of thousands of news and information websites based aboard
4. Lifting the ban on Chinese media using foreign news agency video footage and news reports without permission
5. Suspend the policy dubbed “11 Commandments of the Internet” which covers ontent censorship and self-censorship on websites.

As of now it is still impossible for the international media to employ Chinese journalists as part of its reporting base.

• Chinese Dissidents Watched, Arrested As Games Near
• Repression Continues In China, One Month Before Olympic Games
• Dog Gone But What About De Donkey
• 14 Millions Stolen And Lost Travel Dociuments May Be used By Terriorists To Disrupt Olympic Games!!!
• UPDATED – Sabotage Of Beijing Games? – Kidnapping And Sucide Attacks  – What’s Next!!!!!!
• Choas Surrounds The Olympic Torch Relay But The Games Are Still On
• Boycotting Of Olympic Opening Ceremony Gaining Momentum
• Lighting Of Olympic Flame Today

Pastor Confesses Porn Addiction

Pastor David Erik Jones remembers the morning he decided to reveal his pornography addiction to his church congregation at First Baptist Church in Jayton, Texas.  He knew there was a very good chance he would lose his job that day. But he also knew that his admission might bring others to face their own problems.  Either way, he was determined to tell the truth about his life.  

His congregation not only supported him, but encouraged him to continue to tell his story.  His new book entitled, My Struggle, Your Struggle: Breaking Free from Habitual Sin, details the beginnings of his battle with pornography that would find root in his childhood and follow him into marriage. 

 ”I felt that some of the members might not respect me or want me to continue as their pastor,” says Jones, “but I was willing to take that risk.  I talked about it with my family and they supported me all the way. I did believe there was a possibility that I could be asked to leave.  But I knew it was worth the risk, and I trusted God to take care of us either way.”

Turkish Wives Shot By Husbands – Part Of Culture That Denigrate Them

Emine Yaman lies in bed, her legs rigid, her feet prone to sores and swelling. Paralyzed by a bullet her husband fired into her chest, she is the face of domestic violence in a country still struggling to discard long-held cultural practices that denigrate women.

She wears diapers and reaches for a knotted sheet hanging from an overhead bar to shift her upper body. The weak bones in her 40-year-old hips, knees and left arm have broken since the shooting in 1999. Infections induce fevers and she takes antibiotics. A municipal doctor sometimes visits her bare apartment beside a highway in Turkey’s biggest city.

Virtually abandoned by her family, she lives on the kindness of strangers.

Her husband, Ahmet, who did a short stint in jail for shooting her, has filed for divorce, saying she was aggressive. He lives with their teen-age son and daughter in his home province of Giresun on the Black Sea coast.

Emine rarely talks to her children, and gets some consolation from refusing to divorce.

“He left me like this,” she said. “Should I divorce him and make him feel comfortable?”

Turkish media and activists have cited Emine Yaman’s story as an extreme example of the consequences of domestic violence in the secular state of more than 70 million people, mostly Muslims. The recent murder of an Italian peace activist hitchhiking in a wedding gown renewed debate about the problem. A man was charged with the killing.

Turkey is still grappling with the issue of violence against women in a largely patriarchal society where the old expressions go: “A beating comes from paradise” and “Don’t keep her without a stick on her back and a baby in her belly.” So tolerable is abuse that in the 1990s, a TV comedy show featured a character who was constantly beaten up by her husband.

Last year, a Turkish survey of 1,800 married women found that one in three was a victim of domestic abuse. Some global estimates are similar.

Turkey has struggled to curb “honour killings,” murders of women deemed to have tarnished the reputation of their relatives, sometimes by having a premarital affair or a child out of wedlock.

Pressed by women’s groups and the European Union, which the country hopes to join, Turkey removed many discriminatory laws, made rape within marriage a crime and barred sexual harassment in the workplace in a 2005 penal code. Activists say enforcement is weak and police and judges need training.

Turkey is also educating thousands of police about domestic abuse with tutors and training videos, and backed an awareness campaign on television.

Some women’s activists support the Islamic-oriented government’s efforts to lift curbs on the wearing of Muslim head scarves, which would make it easier for pious women to get state jobs and education. But they say authorities should devote as much time to domestic violence.

Turkish law requires municipalities of more than 50,000 people to open shelters for women, but many cities don’t provide such help. Traditionally, authorities discourage breakups and urge couples to resolve differences, a path that can prolong the abuse.

In 1989, Emine and Ahmet eloped to escape her parents’ disapproval. A wedding photograph shows the couple seated in a municipal office: Ahmet, lean and dapper, signs a registry and Emine looks on, her head bowed slightly beneath her veil, her face pale with makeup.

They lived in Istanbul, where Ahmet was a food caterer.

“During our honeymoon, we saw everything through rose-coloured glasses,” Emine said.

Soon, the abuse began. According to Emine, her husband called her a “whore,” slapped her, and once hunted her with a knife. He cheated on her a few times. Emine left him a few times. She always came back, usually after police or family members told them to make peace.

Years later, the family moved to Giresun. A divorce case was pending when Ahmet shot Emine one day in August 1999 after pulling up beside her in a car as she walked with her disabled daughter in her arms.

“He shot at me from inside the vehicle. The bullet passed in front of my face. Then he got out. He gripped me and forced me toward the car, pushing me against it. He placed the gun here and shot once,” said Emine, pointing at her chest. “I fell on the ground. He jumped in the car and went away. I was left in the middle of the street while cars were passing by. Then my son came running. At the time I was thinking: ‘Am I dead, my God?’ The kid was crying near me.”

Emine was paralyzed from the waist down. She said she told authorities that the shooting was an accident so her husband could leave prison and care for their three children, though her disabled daughter later died.

According to Amnesty International, Ahmet was in pretrial detention for a few months and convicted of negligence resulting in threat to life and the possession of an unlicensed pistol. His punishment was reduced to a $1,200 fine because of good behaviour during trial, the rights group said.

In a 2001 court letter, Ahmet requested a divorce because of what he described as Emine’s wild behaviour, but the case lapsed.

“The defendant locked her children at home and went to unknown places, and did not give the necessary attention to my client or her family, behaving disrespectfully,” reads the letter by Ahmet’s lawyer. “She insulted my client and she could not keep herself from fighting with her neighbours.”

Attempts to interview Ahmet Yaman for this story were unsuccessful.

Telephone listings show nine people named Ahmet Yaman in Giresun: six said they had no connection with Emine Yaman, one said there was no one by that name living there, and two numbers rang unanswered. Emine Yaman said she did not know how to reach her husband, and would not release the cellular telephone number of her son, who lives with him.

Emine said her husband has not paid court-ordered compensation.

“My health problems are piling up,” she said through tears. “How can I forgive that man? Even my God would not forgive him, let alone me.”

Emine has appeared on television programs about violence against women, though her son asked her to stop because it embarrasses him. She survives on donations, including alms at the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.

One day recently, a neighbour back from a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca visited with a bag of Saudi dates.

Source – Los Angeles Times

Nelson Mandela On US Terrorist List

 Nelson Mandela still needs  special permission to visit the States all because the Nobel Peace Prize Winner is blacklisted on US terrorist watch lists.

18 years onwards since his release from prison, commom sense finally prevail when at a Senate hearing Tuesday 9th April,  US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “urged lawmakers…………..to make sure the legislation was passed” to remove Nelson Mandela and ANC’s [Africa National Congress] leaders from any US databases that list them as terrorists. Somehow Ms Rice felt it was time to remove the goodly gentleman and the ANC from a blacklist drawn up during the apartheid era.

Apparently being being South Africa first black president, a Nobal Peace winner, doing humanitarian good and promoting equality between the black and whites races are not good indicators that the gentleman had uhhhhh  “reformed.”

This is what Ms Rice had to say about the shameful situation. “It is frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterparts – the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader, Nelson Mandela.”

The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organisation by South Africa’s old apartheid regime.

At present a waiver is needed for any ANC leaders to enter the country.

 In 2002, former ANC chairman Tokyo Sexwale was denied a visa. In 2007, Barbara Masekela, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States from 2002 to 2006, was denied a visa to visit her ailing cousin and didn’t get a waiver until after the cousin had died.

In other related news

Nelson Mandela  will turn 90 on July 18 this year. People around the world would be able to send personal greetings to Mandela thanks to the Nelson Mandela Foundation which  says it is negotiating with mobile phones networks to make possible. 

The greetings can be send by text or email and will be posted on the Foundation website as part of a year-long series of events which would include interviews to honour Mandela, brithday concert, lecture and exhibitions.

[Adapted from International Press Reports]