|
|
| AIDS destroying families across Africa NAMAVE, (UGANDA), Feb 20: Joyce Nasuuna still has a grandmother’s glint in her eye, a sign .......more
Executive presidency COLOMBO, Feb 20: The executive presidency system that President Chandrika Kumaratunga.....more Torture of prisoners, LONDON, Feb 20 : Torture and public flogging of prisoners and custodial killings are.....more |
|
UNCTAD fails to address India’s concerns on labour standards BANGKOK, Feb 20: The week-long United Nations meet on Trade and Development failed to address India’s concern about linking trade with labour standards and environment even as New Delhi succeeded in getting developing countries viewpoint reflected on issues like agriculture .....more
Salman Rushdie to LONDON, Feb 20: Booker-prize winning author Salman Rushdie, who was put under a.......more |
 |
AIDS destroying families across Africa NAMAVE, (UGANDA), Feb 20: Joyce Nasuuna still has a grandmother’s glint in her eye, a sign of amazing strength for someone who has had to bury so many children. Even in a continent devastated by AIDS, Nasuuna’s story is tragic. Nine of her 12 children have died, at least six of them victims of AIDS, and five of her grandchildren have also been killed by the disease. She now lives in a miserable mud home outside the Ugandan capital Kampala that literally crumbles whenever heavy rains roll through, and she has been left alone to look after nine remaining grandchildren. The children are regularly sick and doctors suspect at least two are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But Nasuuna, 63, still finds a few things to smile about. "Sometimes I feel happy, especially when we have something to eat, when the children are happy and playing," she says as some of the children scamper around the small plot of land next to the tiny one-room hut where all 10 of them sleep, curled up together on the dirt floor. "I would have been living here alone but, because of my grandchildren, I keep busy all the time and that makes me happy," she says with a smile, her two-year-old granddaughter Kisakye — which means mercy in Luganda — sleeping on her lap. Nasuuna admits, however, she can keep her spirits up only by blocking out much of the past, and part of her future too. "I have to forget about the dead ones and concentrate on the orphans. I have to find their food and make sure they are safe," she says, although ‘making sure they are safe’ does not mean finding out whether they are healthy or not. "I am afraid of getting them tested," she says. "I am not sure which ones are HIV-positive. I was advised by the medical people not to have them tested because there will be bad news and it will bring me a lot of bad thoughts." It would also make very little difference to their chances of survival. While many patients in the west have benefited from drug cocktails that slow down the progression of AIDS, such treatment is way too expensive for virtually all africans. Instead, doctors able to deal with lethal AIDS-related illnesses like tuberculosis or diarrhoea only when they occur. Almost no HIV-positive pregnant women are given drugs to prevent them passing the virus on to their children. Families can no longer cope In the past, the effects of poverty, unemployment, illness and death were mitigated by the strength of extended families across the continent — relatives would help each other through short-term crises with food and shelter, and take in orphaned children as their own. But now AIDS is tearing holes even in that last line of defence, simply because it is killing so many would-be providers and the remaining adults of working age already have their hands full looking after their own children. The United Nations estimates that about 11.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS worldwide with 95 percent of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the number will rise to above 13 million by the end of this year. Women like Nasuuna are increasingly being left to look after their grandchildren and the number of households headed by children is also rising dramatically. "The safety net is traditionally aunts and uncles but they are now saying ‘we are struggling and we have our own children. If we take in more, our own will suffer’," says Geoff Foster, a paediatrician who works with a church-based charity helping aids orphans in the mutare region of Eastern Zimbabwe. "When the aunts and uncles are unwilling or unable to help, the children are going to grandparents...And when that final safety net fails you see more and more child-headed households." John Buule’s family in the Central Ugandan village of Lweza lives in a four-room brick home and was relatively comfortable before AIDS took its toll. His father died in 1997 after spending the last two years of his life in bed, and his mother followed him three months later, leaving John Alone to raise his seven brothers and sisters, aged between seven and 14. John, now 19, gets up every morning at five, makes breakfast for everyone, sends them off to school, goes out to work and rushes home to make sure they are all fed and washed before bed. Lively and Jovial, John says he likes the role of parent, playing with the children and cajoling them to study hard and keep the house clean, but the pressure of doing it all by himself without help from relatives sometimes gets to him. "No one wants to help us. When my father died, my mother was already sick and couldn’t get out of bed. But they told me they had their own problems. And now they never come to see us," he says, tears welling up in his eyes. Aware that he is the only person standing between his brothers and sisters and destitution, John has an acute sense of the need to keep healthy. At his age and in a country where aids is widespread, he says that means staying away from women. "I don’t want a girlfriend. I saw how my parents suffered and I don’t want to leave the children here alone," he says. "So now, I don’t sleep with girls." (REUTERS) |
|
Executive presidency system may come in for criticism COLOMBO, Feb 20: The executive presidency system that President Chandrika Kumaratunga agreed to do away after her present six year term ends in 2006 may come in for criticism during next week’s Government-opposition talks on Constitutional reforms. The ruling Peoples’ Alliance has proposed that during the transitional provisions, President Chandrika Kumaratunga will continue to function as the executive President for another six years, while also continuing to exercise all the powers of the Prime Minister under the new Constitution. She was re-elected for a second term on December 21, 1999. The President has invited UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on February 22 for a comprehensive and full discussion on the constitutional draft embodying the devolution package aimed at resolving the Tamil problem. In a detailed letter to the opposition leader, she has explaiend the progress of discussions she had held with the ruling People’s Party (PP) partners as well the Tamil parties over the past one month. The Government had first presented the draft Constitution to Parliament on August 3, 1995 and what she expects to discuss with him was none other than the same draft, she has pointed out. The opposition leader had written to the President extending his party’s support to her Constitutional reforms, including devolution of powers to the North aimed at satisfying the aspirations of the minority Tamils. The opposition support to the Government was only because the President feels that was the only means to find a permanent solution to the ethnic crisis and his party did not want to be a stumbling block. He had also stated that his party expected a full and comprehensive reform proposal that includes abolition of the executive presidency, setting up of independent judiciary, police and Public Service Commission. The Government has now decided to abolish the executive presidency but not with immediate effect. According to the decision, the transition will take place after the present term of the President ends in December 2006 and during that time the President will also hold the power of Prime Minister. The UNP said it was in total disagreement with the proposal. Party sources said Mrs Kumaratunga’s first commitment after the 1994 election when she was elected, was to abolish the executive presidency. Now she wants the power of both the President and Prime Minister for another six years.’’ (UNI) |
|
Torture of prisoners, custodial
deaths LONDON, Feb 20 : Torture and public flogging of prisoners and custodial killings are rampant in Pakistan, human rights organisation Amnesty International has said. At least 50 persons were reportedly killed in custody, 120 extra-judicial executions were reported and some 428 people were sentenced to death of which four were executed, the organisation’s annual report for 1999 said. State officials colluded in abuses by private individuals and religious groups while armed opposition groups were responsible for deliberate and arbitrary killings of civilians, it said. Criminal charges were still registered against women who married men of their choice without the consent of their male guardians, despite judgments of the higher judiciary that women had a right to do so, it said. Police also did not take any protective measures when religious groups in September and October issued fatwas’ (religious decree) offering rewards for anyone killing human rights activists, journalists and religious personalities including the head of the Ahmadiya community, the report said. The law and order situation has steadily worsened in the country with the spiraling sectarian violence between the majority Sunni and minority Shia communities, mainly in the Punjab province, while ethnic fighting in karachi had claimed more than 600 lives. The Government continued to resort to mass arbitrary arrests and detentions, the report added. (PTI ) |
|
UNCTAD fails to address
India’s concerns BANGKOK, Feb 20: The week-long United Nations meet on Trade and Development failed to address India’s concern about linking trade with labour standards and environment even as New Delhi succeeded in getting developing countries viewpoint reflected on issues like agriculture and reform of international financial institutions. Earlier, the Seattle ministerial meeting of the WTO had collapsed because of the confrontationist stand between developed and developing countries on such contentious issues and there were great expectations that the UNCTAD conference would attempt to resolve them to help in finalising the agenda for new round of trade negotiations. But these expectations were ‘belied’ as there seemed to be no balance and flexibility on the part of industrialised nations on these contentious issues which were detrimental to the developing countries, an Indian official summing up the outcome of the conference, which concluded here yesterday, said. However, there were several positive aspects of the conference as the plan of action adopted at the conclusion of the conference expressed growing realisation and appreciation of some of the other problems of trade and development, the official said. Though the UN meet is expected to act as a ‘catalyst’ for consensus-building for the finalising the agenda for new round of trade negotiations, European Union and United States seem unlikely to yield on these contentious issues. The very fact that developing countries had more say at UNCTAD, United States sent only a low level delegation to Bangkok. Washington maintain that trade disputes should be resolved by WTO which has the power to enforce agreements. UNCTAD is a non negotiation body. It is precisely for this reason that Chief Executives of WTO, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and International Labour Organisation were ‘generous’ in paying ‘lip service’ to the pitfalls of globalisation and problems of development, some of the developing countries representatives at the conference said. When it came to implementation of issues of importance to developing countires like anti-dumping measures and development assistance, these multilateral agencies ‘shied’ away, they said. United States has also expressed reluctance about dropping all quotas, despite saying trade should be the primary tool for enriching poor nations. Though the plan of action substantially diluted the paragraph on agriculture to address the concerns of developing countries on food security, powerful members of European Union have not agreed to reduce farm subsidies so that third world could sell their farm products cheaply to these markets. Asked about these distortions in the plan of action, UNCTAD secretary-general Rubens Ricupero said he accepted that the agreement would not produce immediate benefits for the poorest countries and said between what we propose and what countries are prepared to accept at this stage, there is a wide gap. Our role is to propose what is right but there is much effort that remains to presuade the countries that they should make those concessions, he added. UNCTAD promotes trade to develop poor countries, but widened its role to healing some of the acrimony that erupted in Seattle in street protests and disputes between rich and poor nations. But US and EU officials made it clear from the outset that they did not want UNCTAD to move to WTO’s territory. The plan of action called for strengthening developing countries’ national ability to formulate and implement policies to attract and benefit from foreign direct investment, strengthen technological capacities and faster the development of enterprises. But industrialised countries make no commitment to step up FDI. Ultimately, industrialised nations might show some flexibility on trade and investment in the WTO negotiations but it is being increasingly used as weapon to bend developing countries to agreeing to linkage of core labour standards to trade which India and other developing countries are determined to oppose. (PTI) |
|
Salman Rushdie to shift to New York LONDON, Feb 20: Booker-prize winning author Salman Rushdie, who was put under a death sentence for enraging Muslims with his book Satanic Verses, is planning to leave Britain and live permanently in the United States, a newspaper report said today. Fifty-three year old Rushdie is buying an apartment in New York, the ‘Sunday Times’ said quoting his friends, who said he is planning to make America his permanent home. Rushdie has become increasingly disillusioned with Britain and feels very much at home with that vanity fair and New Yorker crowd, the paper quoted a friend of Rushdie’s as saying. Recently Rushdie has been seen with an Indian-born actress based in Los Angeles. Rushdie, who has been in California for the past nine days, met his new companion last September at a lunch party for Talk magazine. It is in doubt whether Rushdie’s wife Elizabeth will join him in America, the paper said quoting Rushdie’s friends. Earlier this month Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for his novel Midnight’s Children, described Elizabeth as the most important person in may life, saying she saved my life. In a time of bad luck, she was my good luck. The two of them worked together on a book about Indian writers, which was published five years ago. (PTI) |
|
|
|
|
|
