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Kenya launches universal HPV vaccine access to youths

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

africanews.com - By George Okore - May. 18 (News Report) - As the world celebrates the Cervical Cancer Week, Kenya has taken a leap of faith by launching universal distribution of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, expected to treat cervical cancer- the most dangerous disease among womenfolk worldwide.

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Nigeria president declares emergency

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 15 (News Report) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declares a state of emergency in three north-eastern states after a spate of deadly attacks by Islamist militants.

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Stop the Plunder of Africa

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By KOFI ANNAN - May. 09 (Opinion) - Op-Ed Contributor: Stop the Plunder of Africa

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Oil and gas sector exports grow

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 05 (News Report) - Exports related to the oil and gas industry grow for the 14th year in a row and are now worth £17.2bn, a survey suggests.

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Somalia Famine Killed 133,000 Children Under The Age Of 5

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jason Straziuso - May. 02 (News Report) - A decision by extremist Islamic militants to ban delivery of food aid and a "normalization of crisis" that numbed international donors to unfolding disaster made south-central Somalia the most dangerous place in the world to be a child in 2011. The first in-depth study of famine deaths in Somalia in 2011 was released Thursday, and it estimates that 133,000 children under age 5 died, with child death rates approaching 20 percent in some communities.

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EU debates biopiracy law to protect indigenous people

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 01 (News Report) - Pharmaceutical firms would need to compensate indigenous people for using their knowhow in creating new medicines The European parliament is debating a draft biopiracy law requiring industry to compensate indigenous people if it makes commercial use of local knowledge such as plant-based medicines. Under the law – based on the international convention on access to biodiversity, the Nagoya protocol – the pharmaceuticals industry would need the written consent of local or indigenous people before exploring their region's genetic resources or making use of their traditional knowhow. Relevant authorities would have the power to sanction companies that fail to comply, protecting local interests from the predatory attitude of big European companies. German firm patents South African herb The draft report on access to genetic resources by Green MEP Sandrine Bélier cites as an example a German pharmaceutical company's dealings in South Africa. Pelargonium sidoides, a variety of ...

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Zimbabwe lures investors to solve drought

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

aljazeera.com - Apr. 27 (News Report) - With Zimbabwe facing a water crisis, people in some parts of the capital Harare have gone for months without access to clean water. Now the government is trying to attract private investors to help fix the problem.

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The Kilburn Manifesto: our challenge to the neoliberal victory

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Stuart Hall - Apr. 24 (Opinion) - Elites are using the crisis of global capital to reassert power. But this is no time for retreat. Our manifesto outlines the alternative The crisis in the global economic system triggered by the banking collapse of 2006-08 has precipitated a new moment in the evolution of global capitalism. But its novelty is not generally understood. Some previous crises, most famously the great crash and depression of the 1930s, produced radical social change: the welfare state and New Deal , as well as the rise of fascism. In the past five years protest groups such as Occupy have appeared, and resistance to austerity has grown. Yet there has been no rupture in the system or its governing ideology. Indeed, elites have used the crisis in Europe and north America to advance the neoliberal project, as unrelenting attacks on living standards, the NHS and the welfare state in Britain show. The disintegration of the British postwar settlement was the central project of one of the new right's most politically ...

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Authoritarian Allies & the Myth of U.S. 'Leverage'

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - By Peter Hart - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - The most notable part of the article is the fact that Whitlock has a U.S. official essentially agreeing with a damning critique of U.S. foreign policy: "The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass," acknowledged a senior U.S. official who specializes in Africa but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. "Whereas other countries that don't cooperate, we ream them as best we can."

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Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement's Adoption Obsession

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kathryn Joyce - Apr. 15 (Comment) - IN 2005, SAM ALLISON, a Tennessee housepainter in his 30s, arrived at Daniel Hoover Children's Village , an orphanage outside Monrovia, Liberia. He'd come to adopt three children, but ended up with four: five-year-old Cherish; her nine-year-old brother, Isaiah; their 13-year-old sister, CeCe, who had taken care of them for years; and Engedi, a sickly infant whom Sam and an adoption broker had retrieved from "deep in the bush." The older children's father had sent them to Daniel Hoover during Liberia's 14-year civil war, after their mother died in childbirth.

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Award for SA anti-fracking activist

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 15 (News Report) - South African anti-fracking campaigner Jonathan Deal is one of six winners of this year's Goldman Prize, a prestigious environmentalist award.

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Climate change: how a warming world is a threat to our food supplies

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By John Vidal - Apr. 14 (Comment) - Global warming is exacerbating political instability as tensions brought on by food insecurity rise. With research suggesting the issue can only get worse we examine the risks around the world Infographic: the impact of climate on food When the Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi , set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, it was in protest at heavy-handed treatment and harassment in the province where he lived. But a host of new studies suggest that a major factor in the subsequent uprisings, which became known as the Arab spring, was food insecurity. Drought, rocketing bread prices, food and water shortages have all blighted parts of the Middle East. Analysts at the Centre for American Progress in Washington say a combination of food shortages and other environmental factors exacerbated the already tense politics of the region. As the Observer reports today, an as-yet unpublished US government study indicates that the world needs to prepare for much more of the same, as food prices ...

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Millions face starvation as world warms, say scientists

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By John Vidal - Apr. 14 (Comment) - World is unprepared for changes that will see parts of Africa turned into disaster areas, say food experts Millions of people could become destitute in Africa and Asia as staple foods more than double in price by 2050 as a result of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts that will transform the way the world farms. As food experts gather at two major conferences to discuss how to feed the nine billion people expected to be alive in 2050, leading scientists have told the Observer that food insecurity risks turning parts of Africa into permanent disaster areas. Rising temperatures will also have a drastic effect on access to basic foodstuffs, with potentially dire consequences for the poor. Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centres , which study food insecurity, said: "Food production will have to rise 60% by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand. Climate change comes on top of that. The annual ...

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Novartis denied cancer drug patent in landmark Indian case

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Sarah Boseley - Apr. 01 (News) - The Indian supreme court has refused to allow one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies to patent a new version of a cancer drug, a decision campaigners hailed as a major step forward in enabling poor people to access medicines in the developing world. Novartis lost a six-year legal battle after the court ruled that small changes and improvements to the drug Glivec did not amount to innovation deserving of a patent. T

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Kenya Supreme Court upholds Uhuru Kenyatta election win - BBC News

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Mar. 30 (News) - Kenya's Supreme Court has upheld Uhuru Kenyatta's presidential election victory, rejecting several petitions challenging the vote. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga announced the decision, which was unanimous, saying the poll was free and fair.

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In One Simple Tool, Hope for H.I.V. Prevention

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By PATRICK ADAMS - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - A device that makes male circumcision easier and less painful could help prevent millions of H.I.V. infections in the next decade.

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Judge releases Somali journalist jailed for interviewing alleged rape victim

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Mar. 17 (News Report) - Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim served two months for talking to Lul Ali Osman Barake who claimed rape by men in military fatigues A Somali journalist jailed for interviewing an alleged gang-rape victim spoke of his relief on Sunday after a judge ordered his release. Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim had been sentenced to a year in prison , later reduced to six months, for talking to Lul Ali Osman Barake about her claim that she was raped by five men in military fatigues. "I am happy today like the day I was born," Ibrahim, 25, told the Guardian as he was transported in a four-wheel drive vehicle from Mogadishu central prison to his home. The case has prompted international condemnation over how Somalia's fledgling institutions approach victims of sexual violence and freedom of the press. Barake had also been sentenced to a year in prison but this was quashed on appeal. After her release Barake spoke of her anger with the police and courts over the way she had been treated. "I was a victim and I ...

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Solar-powered mobile health centre rolls into Cape Town

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By David Smith - Mar. 15 (News Report) - A solar truck equipped with remarkable range of facilities could revolutionise healthcare in rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At the back of the truck is a small soundproof booth with a chair, light and pair of headphones. Outside the door sits a "screening memory audiometer" with a laptop and printer. This is an ear clinic on wheels, designed to reach the far-flung corners of Africa. "Before they go to school, children are tested so we know their specific needs," says Kea' Modimoeng, of Samsung, unveiling the $250,000 (£168,000) vehicle in Cape Town, South Africa, this week.

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How I Was Offered My Very Own Safari

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Corbin Hiar - Mar. 12 (Investigative Report) - Mother Jones insisted that before my investigation of congressional conservation junkets went to print, I try everything I could to get a response from the colorful figure who launched and then left the shadowy foundation at the center of the story. So, after spending over four months reporting on ethically questionable trips arranged by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation, I got a hold of a man with a deep Southern drawl and—if he was who I thought he was—first-hand knowledge of ICCF's junkets. "Is this David Barron?" I asked. "This is," he said. After that came a long series understatements, the first of which was my own: "I've been trying to reach you in regards to your involvement with the International Conservation Caucus Foundation." My previous attempts to reach Barron had entailed, among other things, emailing several addresses I had for him and calling a series of listed and unlisted phone numbers associated with him using my Brooklyn cell phone number, ...

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Kenyatta wins Kenya presidential election by narrow margin

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Sudarsan Raghavan - Mar. 09 (News Report) - NAIROBI — Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces charges of committing crimes against humanity, won Kenya’s presidential election by the narrowest of margins, winning 50.07 percent of the vote and avoiding a runoff, the country’s electoral commission announced Saturday. Read full article >>

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US doctors cure child born with HIV

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Ian Sample - Mar. 04 (News Report) - Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented. The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe. Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.

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Polls open in tense Kenya presidential race

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

aljazeera.com - Mar. 04 (News Report) - Polls have opened in Kenya for the first presidential election since deadly ethnic violence that killed more than 1,200 people after a 2007 ballot. The two rivals for the presidency, prime minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Uhuru Kenyatta, have publicl

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'Extinction crisis' focus for CITES

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - By Matt McGrath - Mar. 03 (Special Report) - Delegates from 178 countries will review the convention on international trade in endangered species (CITES) amidst an unprecedented extinction crisis.

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Jason Russell: Kony2012 and the fight for truth

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Carole Cadwalladr - Mar. 03 (Interview) - In March 2012, US charity Invisible Children launched a film, Kony2012, in a bid to highlight the barbarity of a Ugandan warlord. It became a viral hit online, but the media frenzy proved too much for campaign organiser Jason Russell, who had a very public meltdown. In his first press interview since, he explains why his campaign must continue Exactly a year ago, Jason Russell was a nobody. Not a nobody, precisely, but just ordinary. Normal. He was a healthy father of two, living in San Diego, and was happy and fulfilled in his work as a director for Invisible Children , a non-profit organisation he'd helped found. And then, on 5 March, he released Kony2012 , a 30-minute film that explained why the world needed to catch and bring to justice Joseph Kony, a central African warlord, who, over the previous 26 years, had abducted 30,000 children and turned them into soldiers and sex slaves. Russell directed and starred in the film, and within hours it was on its way to becoming what was then the ...

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Violent tide of Salafism threatens the Arab spring

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Angelique Chrisafis, Patrick Kingsley, Peter Beaumont - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - A series of repressive dictatorships have been brought down in north Africa, but the ensuing struggles for power have left a vacuum that has allowed the rise of an extremist movement that is gathering both force and supporters.

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