Heroin and opium are two of the world's most addictive drugs, and now they have come back to haunt Afghanistan, the country that produces almost all the global supply. The United Nations says Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world's opium, most of which goes to Europe and the United States. But the country is also becoming a major consumer of heroin, with just a handful of clinics and little community support for opiate users - estimated to be as many 1.5 million. Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports from Kabul. |
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| Source: Al Jazeera |
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Sunday, June 26, 2011
Afghan drugs find market at home - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
Afghan drugs find market at home - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English
Horror find points to illegal abortions
RT
Published: 16 December, 2008, 03:00
The discovery was made on Sunday evening in a residential area. The bodies, which were wrapped in black plastic bags, are aged between three to six months.
Witnesses reported seeing a pack of excited dogs around the bin before the tiny bodies were found.
There are conflicting reports about who exactly discovered them – high school students or homeless people who were searching for food in the dumper.
Investigators say it is likely the babies were aborted illegally. They are suggesting that their mothers could either be underage girls or immigrant workers too poor to have abortions in clinics.
Residents of the area say it is unlikely the abortions were carried out in their district, which is considered quite well-to-do.
Hard decision: giving birth or not?
The story of Anna Vorobzhankaya from St. Petersburg is tragic, but not unique. She found out she was pregnant, but had to have an abortion. She says her boyfriend’s betrayal and bad living conditions were to blame.
“At that moment I didn’t see another solution. I couldn’t imagine how I would cope on my own. My parents were quite elderly, and I had nowhere to live,” she confessed.
Elena Trushechkina also had to face a difficult choice in her life. Doctors said her baby could inherit serious health problems because of medication Elena was taking when she found out she was pregnant. But she decided to keep the child no matter what. The woman gave birth to a healthy baby, and says she is now against abortions.
“Personally, I’m against it. I will do my utmost to avoid any situations where I’d have to have an abortion,” Elena says.
Preventing abortion
For 70 years, first in the Soviet Union, and later in the Russian Federation, abortion has been legal. Before that time it went on unofficially. In 1938 a failed attempt was made to outlaw the practice, which instead led to its legalisation.
The overall birth rate in Russia dropped significantly in the 1990s, but has begun to show a slight increase in the past few years. In the Krasnodar region, in the south of Russia, doctors noticed a significant growth in population in recent years.
For the second year in a row, local doctors are announcing “the week without abortions”, although they maintain their goal is not to prohibit the procedure. The point is to provide extensive counselling for those who are still unsure:
“Preventing abortions is our priority today. Women should be focused on giving birth. We’ve been offering family planning information during consultations as well as organising lectures and other activities at schools,” Svetlana Lesnyak from Sochi’s maternity home explains.
While the effectiveness of abortion-free week is being questioned by many, mainly for moral reasons, the figures speak for themselves. Doctors say the number of abortions in the region this year has dropped by 2,500.
Russia’s government is set to encourage population growth by building new medical facilities, and refurbishing the old ones. So, perhaps this, together with new counselling methods may give an additional boost to what many in Russia would like to see as the beginning of a baby boom.
Killing babies to end a war
RT
Two women each from warring tribes came forth and described to PNG's National newspaper their desperate effort to end tribal fighting.
Rona Luke and Kipiyana Belas said that because of a notorious history of cyclical payback, the only way to stop the violence was to reduce the stock of males in the tribe which would force them to stop fighting.
'Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,' said Luke.
Rona Luke was attending a special conference called 'peace and reconciliation' in the region's capital, Goronka.
“All the womenfolk agreed to have all babies born killed because they have had enough of men engaging in tribal conflicts and bringing misery to them,” Luke said.
'It's a terrible, unbearable crime, but the women had to do it," Luke added.
The women could not give a figure for how many had been killed.
The men in this region are constantly at war with each other and this has left women and children to fend for themselves, making simple food gathering very difficult.
Many of the conflicts have been going on since 1986 and often they are over claims that a rival tribe used sorcery and witchcraft to cause the death of tribal members.
The Salvation Army is currently trying to initiate peace talks between the tribes and hoping the males will lay down their arms.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
One man’s mission to save rejected babies
RT
A man from Vietnam is on an incredible solo mission to cut the country’s abortion rate, one of the highest in the world. Tong Phuoc Phuc has opened his home as a refuge for abandoned babies and looks after more than 50. He has pledged to care for unwanted
It all started about seven years ago, when Tong’s wife had complications during pregnancy.
“I prayed to God to help my wife and child and I said that if he saves them, I will do something good for people,” he recalls.
He says when his wife lay recuperating after the difficult birth, he saw many pregnant women going into the delivery room but always leaving alone: “Then I saw the doctors throwing the embryos in the medical garbage. I am Catholic and I respect the spirit of human beings, so I asked if I could take those embryos instead.”
Tong, a building contractor, used all his savings to buy a plot of land where he could lay the unborn babies to rest. There are no names, just numbers on the tiny graves in the cemetery. He believes that foetuses too have souls and should be buried.
At first he says even his wife thought he’d gone mad, but he kept on doing it and now there are about 9000 little graves.
Tong says first women started coming to the cemetery to pray and then many came to his house looking for shelter. Pham Thi Hoang got pregnant before being married and told RT she had nowhere to go.
She said: “My family is very poor and when my parents found out that I was pregnant they had problems with the neighbours because it’s considered to be shameful for a girl to get pregnant before marriage. So my parents told me it’s my problem and I should solve it.”
Now she lives in Tong’s house taking care of abandoned kids. She says after her child is born she will have to leave him there, until she earns enough money for both of them.
Tong says that for the past four years, out of 80 kids that were brought to his house, 30 have been taken back by their mothers.
“These kids now have a safe and happy house. I’m willing to help and teach those kids to be good people for society,” he said.
With his salary of just $US 180 a month, Tong says at first it was very difficult. They didn’t have enough milk and clothes and the pregnant women kept coming, but he says he never turned anyone away.
When the neighbours heard about it they started helping him, some wealthy people have even donated houses for the kids. Now he keeps four homes with about a dozen kids in each of them. He’s also received a letter of praise from the Vietnamese president, but no money.
Tong gave his name to all of these children and says he will raise them as his own – but he always hopes that one day they will be reunited with their mothers.
It all started about seven years ago, when Tong’s wife had complications during pregnancy.
“I prayed to God to help my wife and child and I said that if he saves them, I will do something good for people,” he recalls.
He says when his wife lay recuperating after the difficult birth, he saw many pregnant women going into the delivery room but always leaving alone: “Then I saw the doctors throwing the embryos in the medical garbage. I am Catholic and I respect the spirit of human beings, so I asked if I could take those embryos instead.”
Tong, a building contractor, used all his savings to buy a plot of land where he could lay the unborn babies to rest. There are no names, just numbers on the tiny graves in the cemetery. He believes that foetuses too have souls and should be buried.
At first he says even his wife thought he’d gone mad, but he kept on doing it and now there are about 9000 little graves.
Tong says first women started coming to the cemetery to pray and then many came to his house looking for shelter. Pham Thi Hoang got pregnant before being married and told RT she had nowhere to go.
She said: “My family is very poor and when my parents found out that I was pregnant they had problems with the neighbours because it’s considered to be shameful for a girl to get pregnant before marriage. So my parents told me it’s my problem and I should solve it.”
Now she lives in Tong’s house taking care of abandoned kids. She says after her child is born she will have to leave him there, until she earns enough money for both of them.
Tong says that for the past four years, out of 80 kids that were brought to his house, 30 have been taken back by their mothers.
“These kids now have a safe and happy house. I’m willing to help and teach those kids to be good people for society,” he said.
With his salary of just $US 180 a month, Tong says at first it was very difficult. They didn’t have enough milk and clothes and the pregnant women kept coming, but he says he never turned anyone away.
When the neighbours heard about it they started helping him, some wealthy people have even donated houses for the kids. Now he keeps four homes with about a dozen kids in each of them. He’s also received a letter of praise from the Vietnamese president, but no money.
Tong gave his name to all of these children and says he will raise them as his own – but he always hopes that one day they will be reunited with their mothers.
Another child? Congratulations! You’re fired!
RT
Having a daughter was a life-long dream for Nguyen Van Van, who served as deputy police chief in the Chau Thanh region of the Long An Province. Nature, however, had other ideas, and his wife only gave him sons, reports Itar-Tass news agency.
After the birth of the third child Nguyen was warned to stop by local authorities. Vietnam’s government is trying to curb birth rates in the country, and state officials and communist party members – of which the relentless father was both – are banned from having more than two children.
Still the man didn’t stop in his pursuit for a daughter, and eventually his efforts were rewarded and his wife gave birth to a girl. Nguyen’s dream, however, came at a great cost, as he was expelled from the communist party and fired from the police for ‘sabotaging’ state policy.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Blinded UBC student seeking international treatment
Global NEWS
Rumana Manzur, 33, a Fulbright scholar from Bangladesh completing a master's degree at UBC, was savagely beaten and blinded in Bangladesh by her husband.
Photo Credit: Handout, Special to the Vancouver Sun
Rumana Manzur, the University of British Columbia student blinded in a vicious June 5 domestic assault in Bangladesh, is reportedly seeking medical treatment in developed countries after being unable to find eye specialists in Bangladesh and India that could help restore her sight.
The Daily Star, a newspaper in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, is reporting that Manzur's family has approached specialists in the U.S., Singapore, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands to repair her damaged eyes.
"We are trying to explore if any doctor in the world can treat the eyes that do not respond to light," Manzur's cousin, Rashed Maqsood, told the Star.
Manzur, a 33-year-old UBC graduate student, Fulbright scholar, and assistant professor at Dhaka University, says she was attacked by her husband, Syeed Hasan, during a bitter argument over her education; her eyes were gouged, part of her nose was bitten off and her cheek, lips and throat were chewed on in front of the couple's five-year-old daughter, Anusheh. The assault allegedly lasted 25 minutes, and ended when maids opened the locked room to find Manzur lying in a pool of blood.
Hasan was arrested June 15, and remains in the custody of Bangladeshi authorities. He confessed to resenting Manzur's pursuit of education, but later claimed during a news conference his wife had been communicating on Facebook with an Iranian lover, and she physically attacked him after he confronted her.
Manzur has tearfully denied accusations of infidelity from her hospital bed in Dhaka.
She said her last memory from before the assault was of working on her computer with her five-year-old daughter by her side. She had planned to return to UBC in August to complete her thesis on climate change.
"I was working on my university thesis when my husband rushed into the room and locked the door. He grabbed me by the neck and pulled my hair back. The attack was preplanned, we were not having a fight," she said. "He put his fingers in my eyes."
Manzur said she had kept secret a decade of violence within her marriage. "He was always sorry after. He always promised the beatings would never happen again."
She had sought treatment in Pondicherry, India, but returned to Bangladesh when the doctors there told her they could not help her.
Friends, family, and colleagues are organizing to seek justice for her and to fund the treatment she needs.
A rally on her behalf is scheduled for Sunday at 3.p.m. PST, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Friends have started a Facebook group called Support for Rumana Manzur.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read it on Global News: Blinded UBC student seeking international treatment
UN mission to probe DR Congo rape claims
| AL Jazeera Africa | ||
| Team to be sent after alleged rape of up to 100 women in African country's eastern province of Sud-Kivu. Last Modified: 23 Jun 2011 21:13 | ||
The UN says it is sending a team to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to investigate allegations of rape. The French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, has said that more than 100 people in Niakiele village, in Sud-Kivu province, were raped or beaten in an attack which took place between June 10 and 12. "We have a UN inter-agency mission going tomorrow into the area, one of the key tasks of the human rights component is to verify these allegations of rape," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman at the UN human rights office, told the AFP on Thursday. "We received these allegations but we need to go on the ground to confirm them before we can share anything." Megan Hunter, head of the Dutch branch of MSF in Sud-Kivu province, said: "We have certainly treated over 100 women who say they have been raped or are suffering trauma." She did not say who might be responsible. However, she said that MSF is working with Congolese health officials to get more information. Jean-Marie Ngoma, a provincial parliamentarian, blamed the assaults on "soldiers from the Congolese army", headed by an officer named as Colonel Niragire Kifaru, who is a former member of the Mai Mai tribal militia. Ngoma said that more than 60 women in the village were raped. The UN-backed Radio Okapi said the attacks have been blamed on a group of about 200 rebels who had been integrated into the DRC army before deserting this month. The resource-rich eastern DRC is an unstable area marked by violence blamed largely on the presence of the army and a host of militia and rebel groups. High incidence of rape Colonel Vianney Kazarama, spokesman for the DRC armed forces [FARDC] in Sud-Kivu province, denied that Colonel Kifaru was involved in the rapes. "This is false, he never committed an infraction. There are Mai Mai militia in the zone, and also [rebels of] the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)." The FARDC spokesmanadmitted that Kifaru had deserted and "taken to the bush, because he wanted troops [being integrated into the regular army] to be taken into consideration, because they had no water and nothing to eat." The Congolese army is training several regiments in Sud-Kivu and Nord-Kivu provinces, after several local armed groups were integrated into military ranks. This process of integration began after a regional war devastated the DRC between 1998 and 2003 and the new army lacks training and discipline. The vast central African country has a high incidence of rape, with a study released in May saying more than 1,000 women were raped every day. More than 400,000 women and girls between the ages of 15 to 49 were raped in the conflict-ravaged country during a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health. | ||
| Source: Agencies | ||
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