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A category focusing on the issues that plaque that African continent. All you need to know about poverty, malaria, HIV/AID, african stereotypes, africans struggle in the west, bad leadership at home
In the previous article we discuss some qualities seen in some of the most successful people. The first quality we talked about in detail was their propensity to break rules set by society and conventional wisdom. My friend BJ was used as an example regarding his self-praising attitude, in other ways, He Blows His Own Horns.
For those of us who were raised in cultures that spurn people who praise themselves, BJ may be the typical over-complacent type of guy. His enemies would be more than his friends.
What Blowing Your Own Horns is not.
The idea of blowing your own horns may sound like a call to pomposity and snobbishness, but that is not what I’m talking about here. It does not refer to the guy next door who thinks he’s knows more than anybody under the sun and is right 100% of the time. It does not apply to the person who is too conceited to ask for advice or seek help when he or she needs to.
25 May 2011 –One of Africa’s greatest untapped resources is its young people, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today, urging the continent to take advantage of the skills and talents of its youth to promote sustainable development.
Mr. Ban spent Africa Day today in Ethiopia, the final leg of a three-country, five-day visit to the continent that has also taken the United Nations chief to Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
In a statement marking the Day, whose theme this year is “Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development,” Mr. Ban warned that “despite advances in education and economic growth, progress remains fragile, inequalities are widespread and young Africans face major difficulties in finding decent jobs and participating in decision-making.”
He noted that in North Africa this year, where protests led to the downfall of long-term regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and open conflict in Libya, a lack of basic freedoms “was among the factors that led young people to take to the streets demanding change and fulfilment of their legitimate aspirations for better lives.
“Empowering youth is essential for sustainable economic growth and sustainable management of the earth’s ecosystems and resources; the clear challenge for many countries now is to pay just as much attention to sustainable political progress.
“As Africans strive to overcome threats to peace and development, the continent will continue to need strong and dedicated support from all its partners. On Africa Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to work in partnership with Africans of all ages to realize their potential by building an environment conducive to prosperity, democracy and peace.”
He underlined the need for Africans “to realize their right to choose their own leaders and ensure that elections are a route to peace, not violence.”
Africa Day commemorates the founding of the Organization of African Unity (the predecessor of today’s African Union) on 25 May 1963. During his current visit to the continent, Mr. Ban has been trying to mobilize “global support for reducing child and maternal mortality rates.
“Progress in this area has been slower than it is on all the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” he said, “despite proven policies, practices and technologies.”
Meanwhile, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) today presented its new Africa Water Atlas that details the state of the continent’s water resources.
The 326-page atlas uses more than 100 satellite images, 225 maps, 500 graphics and 250 ground photographs and provides a brief profile of the water situation and progress towards the MDGs in every country.
“The publication makes a major contribution to the state of knowledge about water in Africa by synthesizing water issues by looking at them from the perspective of challenges and opportunities,” UNEP said in a statement.
For its part the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is holding events throughout the week, including screenings, art exhibitions and thematic debates. Special attention will be paid to the themes of the role of women and youth in the African Renaissance and the construction of peace.
25 May 2011 –Visiting with health workers in Ethiopia, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today spotlighted the progress made in improving the health of women and children, while also stressing the need to do more to avoid needless deaths.
“We have seen so many women and children dying needlessly from preventable diseases,” Mr. Ban told reporters at the Ambo Mesk health post in Bahir Dar, in Ethiopia’s northern state of Amhara.
“Training good health workers [and] training good midwives can save a lot of women’s and also children’s lives.”
The Horn of Africa nation knows all too well the challenges associated with ensuring maternal and child health. Every 25 minutes, another Ethiopian woman dies from complications related to child birth. Most are in rural areas, far from any clinic.
At the health post, Mr. Ban met with the staff providing essential services to communities previously living without ready access to such care.
He also visited a larger health centre, a few kilometres away, which supports the health post by providing it with supplies and on-the-job training. There he spoke with doctors and nurses about their work, as well as with some patients.
“I hope that the Government will try to expend these posts, clinics and centres and also hospitals,” said the Secretary-General.
At a major UN development summit in New York last September, participants adopted the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, committing $40 billion in resources to a global effort to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015.
The Strategy identifies the finance and policy changes needed, along with vital interventions to help improve health and save lives. It is expected to prevent, between 2011 and 2015, the deaths of more than 15 million children under five, as well as 33 million unwanted pregnancies and the deaths of 740,000 women from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
Mr. Ban commended Ethiopia on its commitment to improve maternal and child health, including its goal of quadrupling the number of midwives. The country is a good example of how a little investment can go a long way in saving many lives, he added.
The UN chief is now in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he is attending an Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union on the State of Peace and Security in Africa.
On the sidelines of that meeting, he met with the Vice President of South Africa, the President of Equatorial Guinea, the President of Senegal and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
With friends like these, maybe sexual assault allegation can disappear! The Post reports that the friends of former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn are contacting the overseas relatives of his accuser, “offering them money to make the case go away since they can’t reach her in protective custody… The woman, who says she was sexually assaulted by the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund, has an extended family in the former French colony of Guinea in West Africa.” A French businesswoman who knows Strauss-Kahn and his family says the friends “already talked with her family. For sure, it’s going to end up on a quiet note.”
Strauss-Kahn is accused of forcing the maid to perform oral sex on him in his Sofitel hotel suite on May 14. While the Manhattan DA’s office has apparently warned the accuser’s family not to accept calls from his connections, Cyrus Vance’s reach only goes so far. The source continued, “He’ll get out of it and will fly back to France. He won’t spend time in jail. The woman will get a lot of money”—possibly a seven-figure payout.
Fox News reported on the alleged exchange between the 32-year-old maid and Strauss-Kahn, which—allegedly—included him grabbing her breasts and bloody sheets:
The 32-year-old African immigrant repeatedly told her alleged attacker, “Please, please stop. No!” The sources said she had no idea who was staying in the $3,000-a-night junior presidential suite until after the alleged attack, which lasted approximately thirty minutes…The maid said she tried a variety of tactics to get herself out of the room and away from Strauss-Kahn. She said, “my manager is in the hallway,” which he wasn’t — but the former IMF chief wasn’t scared off. The single mother allegedly told the Frenchman that the job was important to her and any conflict with a hotel guest would result in her losing her job.
“Please stop. I need my job, I can’t lose my job, don’t do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop! Please stop!” she told Strauss-Kahn, according to law enforcement sources.
Strauss-Kahn allegedly responded: “No, baby. Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your job. Please, baby, don’t worry,” Strauss-Kahn responded, according to investigators. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?”
Strauss-Kahn’s DNA was allegedly found on the maid’s clothing. His defense has suggested the encounter was consensual.
Strauss-Kahn, a leading French politician whose libido was apparently legendary in France, has been indicted on numerous charges and is out on $6 million ($1 million cash, $5 million bond) bail. He’s living at 71 Broadway, which has turned into a media circus, while his very wealthy wife is looking for other housing. But real estate brokers tell the Post that no one wants to work with him. At any rate, Strauss-Kahn has proclaimed his innocence.
Vuvuzelas – the horns used by football fans celebrating last year’s World Cup – not only cause noise pollution but may also spread diseases, say experts.
A short burst on the instrument creates a spittle shower similar to a sneeze, travelling at a four million droplets a second, a PLoS One journal study shows.
In crowded venues one person blowing a vuvuzela could infect many others with airborne illness like the flu or TB.
Organisers are considering whether to allow them at the 2012 London Olympics.
Vuvuzela etiquette
Critics say they are anti-social and unsafe because of their potential to generate a din louder than a plane taking off.
People with infections must be advised against blowing their vuvuzelas close to other people”
Dr Ruth McNerney, who carried out the latest work at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said a “vuvuzela blowing etiquette” may be needed rather than a ban.
“Just as with coughs or sneezes, action should be taken to prevent disease transmission, and people with infections must be advised against blowing their vuvuzelas close to other people,” she said.
Her team investigated the vuvuzela hazard using a laser device to measure how many droplets were produced by eight volunteers using the horns.
On average, 658,000 lung particles, or aerosols, per litre of air were expelled from the instruments.
The droplets shot into the air at the rate of four million per second.
In comparison, when the volunteers were asked to shout, they produced only 3,700 particles per litre at a rate of 7,000 per second.
“When attending a sporting event and surrounded by vuvuzela players, a spectator could expect to inhale large numbers of respiratory aerosols over the course of the event,” Dr McNerney warned.
TCHIAKOULLE, Guinea — Nestled in the mountains of northern Guinea, accessible only by foot, lies the birthplace of the maid who says Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in a New York hotel.
With no electricity nor phone lines, the village of Tchiakoulle could not be further from the bright lights of Manhattan where one of its daughters has brought one of the world’s most powerful men to his knees.
In the shadow of steep cliffs in the Fouta Djallon region, home to the Fulani ethnic group, Tchiakoulle boasts seven concrete houses, one built by the alleged victim’s sister, and a few dozen mud huts alongside a river.
The 32-year-old hotel chambermaid at the Sofitel hotel accusing the former International Monetary Fund chief of sexual assault and attempted rape “was born here, her father was born here,” said her half-brother Boubacar, 42, born to the same father.
He was speaking to an AFP journalist who tracked down the woman’s home village after rigourous cross-checking and verification with his own family in New York and those of the victim.
Boubacar said his half-sister lived in Tchiakoulle until the age of 13 before moving to Labe, the main town in the region, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) away, but returned home to get married at about 17.
The couple had a daughter, but shortly after the marriage, her husband, the son of a rich Fulani marabout, passed away.
It was then that the young women left with her child to the United States, according to her half-brother.
He said her sister Hassanatou, already living in New York, had paid for her journey with the help of her husband, a shopkeeper in the Big Apple. Hassanatou is the owner of one of the village’s seven concrete houses.
Their mother usually lives in the house, but was seeking medical treatment in Dakar at the time of AFP’s visit.
The members of the accuser’s family living in the village describe her as very pretty, but illiterate, having never been to school. She attended a madrassa in the village where she learned to recite verses on the veranda.
Her uncle, Mody, remembers a girl who was “not rebellious”, while another relative in Labe describes her as “a serious, kind girl and no one knew any trouble from her.”
The 60-year-old said that three days ago he heard “on local radio that a white man abused a girl in the United States. I could not have imagined it was my niece.”
Cut off from the world, no one in the village knew what had become of their long-lost daughter, the last of six children — three girls, three boys — born to a father with two wives.
Her father was a poor farmer, but also a respected Muslim cleric in the region until his death at age 90 in 2009. Residents of the hamlet say her family was very pious.
Unlike her sister Hassanatou, the young woman appears to have cut all ties with her home village.
“Since my sister left over 10 years ago, I have spoken to her once,” said Boubacar, her half-brother.
“It was after dad’s death. I was in Bissau. I called to give her my condolences but as soon as she saw the number she realised it was from Africa and said: “don’t bother calling me”.
“She didn’t know who was on the other end of the line but when I told her she agreed to talk to me.”
Her uncle also has had no news from his niece: “Since she left I haven’t received a letter, photos, nothing.”
Thousands of Guineans live and work abroad in other African countries, Europe and the United States because, despite its massive mineral wealth, half of Guinea’s 10 million population live in poverty.
Although 100% condom programmes can be effective in increasing condom use in commercial sex transactions, they should be implemented in ways that do not violate the human rights of sex workers or their clients.
This is one of the recommendations in a report on human rights and the Global Fund recently released by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the Open Society Foundations (OSF).
These 100% condom use programmes (also called 100% CUP) are a central part of national HIV responses in a number of countries, including China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia, Laos and Myanmar.
These programmes, which are designed to ensure that condoms are used in all commercial sex transactions, usually target sex workers in brothels or entertainment establishments. According to the report, in most cases, the strategy is to make commercial sex without condoms illegal and to enforce that illegality – which means that local authorities and the police are, inevitably, integrally involved in these programmes.
The report acknowledged that evaluations have found these programmes to be effective in reducing unsafe sex in commercial sex establishments. However, the report added, although they are meant to protect sex workers and their clients, in most cases the programmes have been designed without meaningful participation of sex workers or their NGO allies. Also, sex workers’ experiences have not frequently figured in evaluations of these programmes.
Finally, according to the report, several studies have documented abusive practices in these programmes, such as: forced registration of sex workers; mandatory STI testing and health examinations at health facilities where sex workers were mistreated; repressive policing; force-marching of sex workers to health facilities with military or police escorts; and public posting of photographs of sex workers who are accused of having had sex without condoms.
In one of these studies, the report said, sex workers reported that they were forced by brothel and nightclub owners to have sex with police in exchange for the police looking the other way when 100% CUP rules were violated.
The authors argued that there are other ways to achieve the target of 100% condom use, without having to resort to mandatory and abusive measures. The report cited the example of sex worker collectives such as those in the Sonagachi neighbourhood of Kolkata, India. The authors said that these collectives have created an environment that ensures that all workers demand condom use; and that the work of these collectives has resulted in both (a) effective HIV prevention and (b) empowering sex workers to stand up to police brutality and stigma in the community.
However, the report said, it may be that these alternative strategies are not well known to CCMs. The use of 100% CUP continues to be supported by CCMs; for example, in a Round 9 Indonesia proposal, the programme included promulgating and enforcing local regulations so that regular condom use would become the norm where sex is sold.
The Legal Network and the OSF recommended that the Global Fund develop criteria that would allow it to identify and reject proposals that include prevention programmes for sex workers that exhibit a lack of human rights protections for the workers and their clients. The report said that CCMs or other applicants that propose 100 percent condom programmes should be required to provide detailed information about the implementation of these programmes, including, for example:
the nature and degree of participation of organisations that are legitimate representatives of sex workers in the design, implementation and evaluation of these programmes;
measures taken to protect sex workers against abuse by clients, police and managers of brothels or entertainment venues; and
measures taken to consider less top-down alternatives to 100% CUP.
Finally, the authors recommended that the Technical Review Panel (TRP) be fully briefed on 100% CUP and alternatives to it; and that the Global Fund invest in capacity-building for CCMs in this area, including providing them with information on best practices
Nafissatou Diallo, maid assaulted by IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn
A hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, who says IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her was due to testify before a New York grand jury on Wednesday, as the French presidential hopeful faced growing pressure to resign.
A lawyer for the 32-year-old African widow dismissed a suggestion by Strauss-Kahn’s defense counsel that the incident at the luxury Times Square Sofitel last Saturday might not have been a sexual assault.
“There’s nothing consensual about what took place in that hotel room,” attorney Jeffrey Shapiro told NBC’s “Today” show, adding he believed she would testify “at some point today.”
The arrest dashed Strauss-Kahn’s prospects for the French presidency and raised broader questions over the future of the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries, looking to a succession, have questioned Europe’s hold on the post.
The United States, the IMF’s biggest shareholder, said Strauss-Kahn was clearly unable to go on running the global lender from a prison cell, whatever the legal outcome.
“I can’t comment on the case, but he is obviously not in a position to run the IMF,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday, calling for an interim head to be named.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe would naturally put forward a candidate to replace him if Strauss-Kahn decided to step down.
Germany, which wants a European to keep the job, said the IMF should deal with its immediate leadership internally and it was too early to discuss a successor to Strauss-Kahn.
French officials said John Lipsky, the IMF’s American number two, whose term expires in August, would represent the Fund at next week’s Group of Eight summit in Deauville, France.
China, Brazil and South Africa questioned Europe’s right to the top job but Europeans said it made sense for them to retain the post while the Fund plays such a crucial role in helping to ease the euro zone debt crisis.
Strauss-Kahn, who denies the charges, is expected to remain in New York’s Rikers Island jail, known for gang violence, at least until his next court appearance on Friday, when lawyers may again request bail. Any trial could be six months away.
If convicted, he could face 25 years in prison. A law enforcement source said he had been placed on suicide watch, but purely as a precautionary measure.
In the U.S. legal system, a grand jury convenes in secret to hear evidence and decide whether to indict the defendant.
In the only public hint of Strauss-Kahn’s possible line of defense, his attorney Benjamin Brafman told his arraignment hearing on Monday: “The evidence we believe will not be consistent with a forcible encounter.”
However, Shapiro said his client, an asylum seeker from the West African nation of Guinea with a 15-year-old daughter, told Reuters she had not been aware of Strauss-Kahn’s identity until a day after the alleged attack.
“She didn’t have any idea who he was or have any prior dealings with this guy,” the personal injury lawyer said.
“She wants to remain anonymous because she’s very much afraid that something could happen to her physically, she feels very threatened by this,” he said of the global attention.
SET-UP?
An opinion poll in France, taken before his first court appearance on Monday and released on Wednesday, showed that more than half the population believe Strauss-Kahn was set up.
The CSA poll found that 57 percent of respondents thought that the Socialist politician, who had been frontrunner for the 2012 election, was definitely or probably the victim of a plot.
Fully 70 percent of Socialist sympathizers took that view. Most French media have dismissed conspiracy theories.
The poll findings highlighted a cultural divide, with French Socialist politicians and commentators denouncing the public parading of Strauss-Kahn, unshaven and in handcuffs, before he has had a chance to defend himself.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed such a display was humiliating and would be unfair if a defendant were to be found innocent. “But if you don’t want to do the ‘perp walk’, don’t do the crime,” he told reporters.
U.S. media have criticized the French for a tradition of secrecy on politicians’ sex lives, and for showing more compassion for Strauss-Kahn than for the alleged rape victim, whose identity some French newspapers have published.
The French daily Liberation said the IMF chief had told its editors in off-record comments last month that he had just the right qualities to lead France, notably a calm manner, in contrast to conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“Today I fit with everything the French people want — recognized competence, calm, international experience,” he was quoted as having said at an April 28 meeting.
EUROPEAN JOB
The IMF said it had not been in touch with Strauss-Kahn since his arrest but it would be important to do so “in due course.” Two IMF board sources told Reuters the board would ask Strauss-Kahn whether he planned to continue in his post.
In Strauss-Kahn’s absence, Lipsky is temporarily in charge of the institution which manages the world economy and is in the midst of helping euro zone states like Greece, Ireland and Portugal tackle debt woes.
The White House is considering proposing David Lipton, President Barack Obama’s international economic adviser and a former deputy treasury secretary, to replace Lipsky, whose term ends in August, sources familiar with the matter said.
Strauss-Kahn began to lose European support on Tuesday.
“Given the situation, that bail has been denied, he has to consider that he would otherwise do damage to the institution,” Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter said.
A European has held the post of managing director since the IMF was created in 1945, and four of them have been French.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is thought to be interested in the post but her prospects have been clouded by a decision this month by a Paris public prosecutor to recommend a full-scale inquiry into her role in awarding financial compensation to a prominent businessman in 2008.
Emerging countries are starting to flex their muscle over who should succeed Strauss-Kahn, who had been expected to leave soon anyway to run for the French presidency.
China said on Tuesday the selection of the next IMF boss should be based on “fairness, transparency and merit.” It marked the first time that the fund’s third largest member has weighed in so publicly on an IMF selection debate.
South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and a senior Brazilian government official, who asked not to be named, said the next chief should be from a developing country, pressing a case to give emerging economies a greater say in world affairs.
But Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the affair should not be used to press for changes in the way the IMF head is picked, telling GloboNews TV the discussion “is too premature at this point” and Strauss-Kahn was “probably one of the best IMF chiefs that we had in the past years.”
