The Speaker News Journal

Mullah Jailed 20 Years for Raping Child

October 26, 2014October 26, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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A twenty-year sentence has been handed down to a mullah in an Afghan court. The man was found guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl known as Brishna. The girl has faced death threats from her community in the wake of her bringing suit against the man.

A Kabul judge handed down the sentence Saturday, hailed as a rare victory for women’s rights by support groups.

Hassina Sarwari, who runs a women’s shelter in Brishna’s province, said that the decision would most likely have been different except that the trial had been transferred from the girl’s village to Kabul.

Rape is often viewed as adultery in Afghanistan, where rape victims have been jailed themselves.

Brishna was violently raped last May in the village of Kunduz, Kunduz province.

While recovering in hospital, community members threatened her and her family, speaking of killing Brishna and dumping her in the river.

The threats of “honor killing” continued when Brishna was removed from the shelter by police and returned to her family.

Sarwani was also threatened by members of the girl’s family and powerful community members. She faces threats of “honor killing” for protecting Brishna.

By Sid Douglas
Photo: isafmedia

World Bank-Backed Corps and Small-Scale Fishers Fight Over Fishing Rights

October 26, 2014October 25, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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Enclosures of water are being dispossessed from small-scale markets in a rising trend of so-called “ocean grabbing,” according to a recent report by Transnational Institute (TNI) and Afrika Kontakt. Claiming that seas and shores must be taken from common fisher people in order to preserve sustainability, the World Bank is backing corporate interests and a rise in large-scale aqua-industry market-based fishing policies.

“Ocean grabbing is occurring in varied ways,” stated TNI in their report. “One common denominator is the exclusion of small-scale fishers from access to fisheries and other natural resources and access to markets through the adoption or reinterpretation of laws, regulations or policies affecting fisheries governance.”

“Throughout the world, legal frameworks are emerging that undermine the position of small-scale fisheries producers and systems, while strengthening or reinforcing the position of corporate actors and other powerful players. Such ‘perfectly legal’ reallocation processes may or may not involve coercion and violence, but are far from being considered as socially legitimate. They typically involve three types of mechanisms.”

Some key examples offered by the report were used to illustrate the variety of ways in which common access to fishing was being blocked. Luxury beach-resorts occupying long swathes of coastal land, destruction of mangrove areas for purposes of promoting export-oriented shrimp farms, and the rise of Rights Based Fishery (RBF) policies were some of the “technically legal” ways listed by which fisher people were dispossessed or their waters were destroyed in Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

The World Bank enabled “ocean grabbing” through legal frameworks such as its Global Partnership for Oceans (GPO), the report found. GPO enabled the spread of private property rights over the ocean’s fish resources, and was justified by the lack of economic and environmental “sustainability” in the world’s fisheries.

Growing populations around the world are placing stress on fish resources, according to the justification for GPO. For example, in South Africa, access to fish was curtailed for over 60,000 fisher people when a similar privatization program was passed.

The numbers of fisher people wanting access to water resources worldwide is in the billions.

“FAO estimates that 58 million people are engaged in the actual fishing and harvesting in wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture, and that more than 800 million people worldwide depend on fisheries in various ways,” stated TNI. “In addition to these figures, a large number of rural peasants and other people working in rural areas also depend on fishing as a supplement to their main livelihoods.”

By Sid Douglas

Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Rising to Global Threat – WHO

January 26, 2021October 25, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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Tuberculosis is a disease that is seldom heard about these days, but the WHO and MSF have said that forms of TB known as multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) have risen to the level of a global threat. TB is already carried in a latent form in approximately one-third of the global population, and MDR-TB is increasingly the form that is being passed from person to person. Additionally, an even more dangerous form of the disease–extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB)–has been reported in 100 countries.

Tuberculosis has faded into the background of threatening diseases in the West. It saw renewed interest in 1991 when MDR-TB became epidemic in New York–nearly one-fifth of cases did not respond to treatment. That epidemic cost over $1 billion and several years of effort to bring under control.

Today in the US only 1.4 percent of an annual 9,500 TB cases are drug resistant, but the threat remains, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global TB program director, Dr Mario Raviglione.

“They believe that TB is an extinct disease,” Raviglione said of the threat. “I don’t know why.”

WHO released a report this month that reported that nine million people became sick with TB in 2013–half a million more than previously thought. Of these, 3.5 percent of new cases were drug resistant.

“In many settings around the world the treatment success rate is alarmingly low,” WHO stated. “Furthermore, extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), which is even more expensive and difficult to treat than MDR-TB, has now been reported in 100 countries.”

Some countries currently have very high rates of MDR-TB. Belarus, for example, has a rate of 35 percent.

It is estimated that one-third of the global population harbors TB bacteria, but most are not aware that they carry the latent disease. The virus, however, continues to transmit to others while in its latent phase.

When TB enters its active phase–commonly when a person’s immune system is lowered–it becomes dangerous.

Children can be protected from TB–even its worst forms–by a widely distributed vaccine. Adults are usually protected by the same vaccine.

DR-TB is treatable, but the treatment requires long, expensive, painful side-effects to the antibiotics, including psychosis, deafness and constant nausea. The treatment takes around two years, and 50 percent of patients die. When it comes to XDR-TB, 80 percent of patients die.

Drug resistant TB is created by humans. Incomplete treatment allows the TB to adapt to antibiotics. When a person develops DR-TB they pass that form of TB on to others.

Of the TB cases that have been documented by the WHO worldwide, 3.5 percent are DR-TB cases passed on from people who have DR-TB.

“We think that drug-resistant TB is really becoming an epidemic in its own right,” said Dr. Grania Brigden, TB adviser for Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

Photos: Gates Foundation and Microbe World

Cambodian Land Grabbing Is “Crime Against Humanity” – British Lawyer Files with International Court

October 26, 2014October 25, 2014 by Sid Douglas

Evicted: Borei Keila and Cambodian Land Grabbing.

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Cambodian land-grabbing constitutes a “crime against humanity,” British lawyer Richard Rogers has told the International Criminal Court (ICC). The lawyer is officially representing 10 Cambodian victims of the alleged abuse in the suit.

“I am confident,” said Rogers, who is a member of the Global Diligence LLP as well as the Cambodian Nation Rescue Party’s (CNRP) international counsel. “The law is very clear.”

Rogers has filed for the International Criminal Court to investigate a wave of violent land-grabbing in Cambodia which has displaced approximately 770,000 people. The land grab has been carried out by Cambodia’s ruling elite, Rogers alleges, and constitutes a crime against humanity.

The land grab has been “widespread and systematic” over the past 14 years, Rogers has stated. The elite classes have perpetuated mass rights violations in pursuit of wealth and power, “include murder, forcible transfer of populations, illegal imprisonment, persecution and other inhumane acts,” according to Rogers, who says that the acts amount to international crimes.

The elite has accomplished the land grab by exploiting land tenure insecurity in post-war Cambodia (particularly when the Khmer Rouge abolished land titles) and exploiting a corruptible judiciary and state security forces.

“The question for the ICC is, at what point do these types of human rights violations become so grave that (when taken together) they amount to an international crime and meet the gravity threshold? Do we wait until 5 percent of the population has been affected, or 10 percent?” Rogers said.

“The communication contends that senior members of the Cambodian government, its security forces, and government-connected business leaders carried out an attack on the civilian population with the twin objectives of self-enrichment and preservation of power at all costs.”

Individual perpetrators are not specifically indicated in the complaint, but it does recommend that court prosecutors investigate the role played by specific police and military units involved in evictions. “Deportation or forcible transfer of populations” falls under the ICC’s definition of crimes against humanity, Rogers has pointed out.

Approximately 770,000 people–6% of the Cambodian population –have felt the effects of land grabbing since the year 2000, according to Rogers’s evidence.

More than 145,000 people have been forcibly relocated from Phnom Penh.

Dissent and criticism have also been silenced through human rights abuses, Rogers contends. Lawyers, activists, journalists, unionists and opposition members have been silenced through threats and violence in order to protect the interests of the ruling elite.

“I am confident that the ICC will initiate a preliminary examination. The law on this is very clear. The definition of crimes against humanity does not require an armed conflict.” Rogers said.

The actions of land grabbers in Cambodia represent “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population” and are “pursuant to state policy”, according to Rogers’s complaint.

Cambodian officials are attempting to discredit Rogers’s claims.

Government spokesman Phay Siphann called the complaint “a joke”–the complaint was not only exaggerated, but politically motivated as well, Siphon stated.

“It’s polarised by politics. We might know who sponsors or who pays money for him and who belongs to whom. I understand [opposition deputy leader] Kem Sokha’s daughter is also involved in the complaint… It was [started] during the [post-election] campaign and related to the political deadlock.”

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann countered Siphan’s criticisms, stated that although Rogers was CNRP counsel, the complaint was not politically motivated.

“Because Cambodian courts have proved unwilling and unable to deal fairly with human rights violations raised in the ICC complaint,” said Sovann, “we support the request for an investigation by the ICC prosecutor.”

By Sid Douglas

Photo: Luc Forsyth

New Cash Transfer Program to Send 73,000 African Girls to School Over Next Two Years – UNICEF

January 26, 2021October 24, 2014 by The Speaker Editors

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A new UNICEF program is helping tens of thousands of African girls to get an education. The initiative is a cash transfer program–the most effective type of program in promoting development that includes the poor, according to UNICEF officials, and the current phase of the program will help send 73,000 girls to school over the next two years.

“There is substantial evidence from around the world that investing in girls’ education has the highest economic rate of return of any kind of intervention a government can implement,” said Michael Samson, Director of Research at the South Africa–based Economic Policy Research Institute, which is collaborating with UNICEF on the project.

“The idea that girls should not go to school belongs to the past,” said a Nigerian father of three school age daughters who were forced to leave school when the family’s economic ability decreased and books, uniforms and other costs became unaffordable.

His three daughters are now back in school under the UNICEF program. “I am now the happiest man in the world,” said Umar.

“With education, my daughters will not be a liability to their husbands. They will be earning money, and they will not be relegated to the background,” said Atika Adamu, a mother of 12- and 13-year-old daughters who are also now attending school under the new program.

Under the UNICEF Girls’ Education Programme (GEP), Nigerian parents receive quarterly payments of 5,000 naira ($US31) for each girl to help cover costs associated with sending the girls to school.

GEP is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

“This kind of programme is among the most effective in promoting pro-poor, inclusive development,” said Samson.

“This intervention is part of what the Nigeria at the state and federal levels is trying to do in terms of setting up a full social protection system, so that people can lead a life of dignity and opportunity,” said Enrique Delamonica, who heads UNICEF Nigeria’s Social Policy and Gender Equality unit.

Under GEP, 23,000 girls will be helped to attend school in the Sokoto and Niger states of Nigeria this year, and next year another 50,000 will be helped.

The program is expected to be expanded to reach other states of Nigeria.

Improvements in the education of girls has been found to be one of the most important factors in improving economic rates. Evidence has also shown that educated girls more frequently grow up to have healthier children and contribute more to their family’s income.

Photo: Pierre Holtz for UNICEF

Deforestation Now Driven by “Globalization and Commercialization” – Report

October 24, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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The nature of deforestation has changed dramatically in recent years, according to a new study by Chalmers University Scientists. Deforestation today is driven by globalization and commercialization to a large and increasing degree–international trade is contributing to deforestation through a demand for beef, soy, palm oil and timber.

“From having been caused mainly by smallholders and production for local markets, an increasing share of deforestation today is driven by large-scale agricultural production for international markets,” said Martin Persson, lead researcher on the study.

Persson’s team looked at seven major deforestation case countries–Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea–and found that one-third to one-half of deforestation could be attributed to overseas trade.

Deforestation Now Driven by Globalization and Commercialization, Deforestation, Globalization, Commercialization, rain forests — Martin Persson

“More than a third of global deforestation can be tied to rising production of beef, soy, palm oil and wood products,” said Persson. “If we exclude Brazilian beef production, which is mainly destined for domestic markets, more than half of deforestation in our case countries is driven by international demand.”

“The trend is clear, the drivers of deforestation have been globalized and commercialized.”

The study was commissioned by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and was completed by Martin Persson of Chalmers University of Technology and colleagues in Linkoping, Sweden, and Vienna, Austria.

In addition to their findings about market trends, the research team found that 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions could be linked to production of the commodities analyzed in the study–and one-third of that amount was due to commodity exports.

The research also found trends in the response of companies to the negative publicity associated with deforestation.

“Another key trend is that more and more corporations have pledged to rid their supply chains from deforestation,” said Persson. “Pushed by environmental organizations and seeing the risks of being associated with environmental destruction, companies like Unilever and McDonalds are pressuring their suppliers to stop expanding production on forest land.”

The countries on the receiving end of the commodities produced through deforestation were China and EU nations. It was not enough, Persson said, to blame the nations in which deforestation occurs.

“Today both public and private consumers, be it individuals or corporations, have the possibility to contribute to the protection of tropical forests by holding suppliers accountable for the environmental impacts of their production,” Persson concluded.

By Sid Douglas

Photo: gillyan9

1,000 Malaria Cases This Week in Yei, South Sudan

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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Over 1,000 cases of Malaria have been diagnosed in Yei River County, Central Equatoria State, South Sudan this week.

“In total those who are registered on OPD we have is one thousand eighty three cases of malaria, and among these cases we have four hundred and fifty four under five, with three dead which means these cases are increasing weekly,” said County Disease Surveillance Officer Michael Lugala.

Three children among the new cases have died.

Reasons for the increase in cases were attributed by Lugula to limited access to mosquito nets and dirty conditions in an interview with South Sudan’s Eye Radio.

Mosquito nets should be made available to residents by health partners and the State Ministry of Health, and living environments should be kept cleaner, Lugula advised.

Mosquito nets, which cost a couple of dollars and last a few years, are the most effective means of preventing malaria is sleeping under a mosquito net, specifically long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLIN).

It is estimated that for every 50-250 nets that are put over the beds of people in malaria-prone areas, one child is saved from death.

The malaria organization Against Malaria has stated that “Mosquito’s typically bite between 10 o’clock at night and two in the morning – and that’s one of the most important things we have on our side: if we can protect people in affected areas when they sleep at night we have a very good chance of preventing them contracting malaria.”

Each net costs about $3, lasts for 3-4 years, and protects, on average, two people.

The statistics are well known given the scale of the problem. Every 50-250 nets we put over heads and beds, one child doesn’t die.

By Sid Douglas

Hong Kong Protest Art Still Stands, Protected by Art Guardians

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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Wary that Hong Kong police might move into protest areas and destroy the array of art created inside the grounds of the democracy movement, a band of “art guardians” has been standing by in case they are needed.

The protests have extended over a month, calling for greater democracy within Hong Kong. The Chinese government continues to deny the calls.

Within the kilometer-long stretch of highway opposite the government headquarters that is the site of the ongoing protest, many pieces of protest art have been created–including the famous “Umbrella Man,” a 12-foot tall wooden sculpture. The umbrella is symbolic of the defense of the people against police batons as well as rain and tropical heat.

New works are constantly being made. Demonstrators sketch chalk art on roads and fold origami umbrellas. Almost all of the walls and pillars is now decorated with art.

The art guardians are ready to protect this art, should police be called in, according to the members.

“Their job is to call me,” Meaghan McGurgan, who runs a theatre blog and founded the Umbrella Movement Art Preservation group. “I can then mobilise the rescue teams standing by.”

This is a people’s art, according to McGurgan. “Everyone can see it, everyone can go, everyone can participate.”

There is currently nowhere for the art to go, however.

“We phoned the museums,” McGurgan said. “They either didn’t get back to us, or said they wouldn’t take the art as it was political. I thought that was really sad.”

A dozen art galleries have offered to take the works temporarily.

Even the “Lennon Wall”–a wall covered in thousands of sticky notes posted by both supporters and detractors of the movement–will be reassembled, according to McGurdan.

“We’ve taken large-scale photographs from far away and gridded them off into sections. If necessary we can put it all together again like a puzzle later on.”

As a last resort, the art guardians will allow the art to be destroyed, McGurdan said. If the police move in and the guardians can’t safely get the art out, they will do their best to document “the destruction of something beautiful”.

By Sid Douglas

China: Experimental Spacecraft Successfully Launched for Moon Mission [Video of Launch and Deployment]

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Daniel Jackson

China Experimental Spacecraft Successfully Launched for Moon Mission (1)

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China launched an experimental unmanned spacecraft Friday–the country’s first return moon mission. The craft, which had a successful launch atop an advanced Long March-3C rocket and is currently travelling along its planned trajectory, will spend eight days in space before returning to Earth.

The craft successfully entered its expected orbit shortly after launch, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, the developers of the craft.

The lunar orbiter was launched from the Xichang Satellite Center in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, atop a Long March-3C rocket, according to Xinhua news.

The flight is expected to take eight days, during which time it will half orbit the moon before returning to Earth and landing in Inner Mongolia.

The purpose of the mission is to test technologies that will be used on a future space vessel, Chang’e-5, which will be sent to collect samples on the moon in 2017. Chang’e-5 will be the final of three phases in China’s moon probe project. Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 were completed in 2007 and 2010. Chang’e-3–China’s first moon rover, called Yutu–completed a soft landing on the moon in December 2013. Chang’e-4 is a backup probe for Chang’e-3.

The experimental craft launched Friday will gather data and validate re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design.

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZEgftXqQbI&feature=youtu.be”][su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ctbc9kw1oHA”][/su_youtube]

By Daniel Jackson

Chinese President Xi Jinping Takes Direct Control of Key Law Enforcement Agency

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Sid Douglas

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken direct control of a key law enforcement agency, according to Communist Party state-run media outlets.

In order to focus concern on the reform of China’s legal system, Xi took direct charge over China’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC). Xi’s taking charge was an “upgrade” of the government’s control of the agency, according to media outlets–members of the Politburo Standing Committee had been in charge of PLAC in times past.

Xi criticized government corruption harshly at a Central PLAC meeting early this year, and vowed to eliminate corruption and corrupt officials with “the strongest will and the strongest action.”

Xi’s government put former PLAC leader Zhou Yongkang–a top ally of former Chineseleader Jiang Zemin–under formal investigation in July. Under Zhou, PLAC had become a highly powerful organization in charge of all law enforcement authorities, including the Ministry of Public Security, the Armed Police, the courts, the Procuratorate, and prison and labor camps.

Religious practitioners such as Falun Gong members were persecuted under PLAC’s authority, after being banned in 1999. Practitioners were detained, tortured and brainwashed under Zhou.

Petitioners and rights defenders were also suppressed under PLAC and Zhou.

By Sid Douglas

Broken-Hearted Woman Stays 1 Week in KFC Eating Chicken After Breakup

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Heidi Woolf

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“I hadn’t planned on staying there long–I just wanted some chicken wings,” said 26-year-old Tan Shen, a native of Chengdu in Sichuan, a southwestern province of China. The young woman had been dumped by her boyfriend.

“I was walking around feeling miserable and decided to stop off at the KFC at the train station,” said Tan. She phoned in sick to her job and stayed at the restaurant.

“But once I got in there and started eating I decided I needed time to think. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment because it was full of memories of him. So I stayed.”

“We work in shifts here and the restaurant is open 24 hours a day, so we get a lot of people coming through,” said restaurant worker Jiang Li Lung. “At first no one really noticed her. But after a few days I began thinking she looked really familiar.

“Then I realised we had been serving her for the past three days and that she hadn’t actually left. When we asked her if she was ok, she said she was and just needed time to think. And then asked for another box of chicken wings with extra large fries.”

“She was after all a paying customer, even if a bit of an odd one,” said Jiang, who also said that Tan was doing no harm eating boxes of chicken. The staff let her stay.

After a week, though, Tan left the restaurant. She said she was starting to get sick of the taste of the food.

“I was getting sick of the taste of chicken so there was no point in staying there anymore.”

“I decided the best thing to do would be to leave the city and go back to my parents,” said Tan. “I had already told work I was off sick, so phoned them and said I was leaving.”

Tan then boarded a train to her parents’ house.

Jiang said of their unusually long staying guest, “I guess we kind of miss her. It certainly made work more interesting.”

By Heidi Woolf

China: Renewable Energy Goal Missed for First Time

October 24, 2014October 23, 2014 by Andrew Stern

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China has cut forecasts for offshore wind power installations by 60 percent–the nation had projected 5,000 megawatts of capacity by 2015 and 30,000 megawatts by 2020, but has reassessed its ambitions. China now aims to install approximately 2,000 megawatts of capacity by 2015 and 10,000 by 2020.

“The pace and scale of offshore wind are full of changes,” said Li Ping, an official from the National Energy Administration (NEA), the organization responsible for the figures.

China is being “more cautious” in its plans to install offshore wind because the enterprise is “more risky and costly,” according to honorary chairman of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, Shi Pengfei.

The 30,000 megawatts projected for 2020 would have been enough to supply 32 million homes. The current goal is less than one-third of that.

The policy adjustment will be the first time China has missed a renewable energy goal. The change will also set back the $15 billion wind power industry

The estimates are preliminary, according to Li, who spoke at a conference in Beijing Thursday.

Currently, China has over 439 megawatts of offshore wind power. The nation may install a further 500 megawatts next year and 1,000 in 2016, according to sources.

China recently expanded its wind energy so rapidly that the power infrastructure was unable to match production–approximately 12 percent of onshore wind turbines were not connected to the grid last year, and another 11 percent were idle because transmission lines were insufficient to the available load. China is slowing things down somewhat, as is reflected in the NEA preliminary estimates.

By Andy Stern

Photo: Dylan Passmore