Irish Neutrality

As a child growing up in the early 1960's in Ireland, I can remember hearing reports of our Foreign Minister, Frank Aitken working tirelessly at the UN, in pioneered treaties to stop the nuclear arms race. Being from a small non-aggressive nation, with no history of colonialism, our Foreign Minister was able to challenge the great nations of the world to address this growing security problem in our world at the time. There was also an excitement and a pride throughout the land in Ireland, as our soldiers began to take part in UN peace missions throughout the world. People of my generation will remember the word "Baluba", which in fact became a part of our daily language for many years. (When one wanted to denegrate someone, he or she was often described as a "stupid Baluba"). Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo and Conor Cruise O'Brien, the head of the UN mission in the Congo, were names on the lips of most Irish people of the time. "Baluba" was a reference to a tribe in the Democratic Republic of Congo who ambushed our Irish UN soldiers at a place called Katanga. Nearly 40 years later when working in Africa, I was aware of unusual feelings within, when I discovered that one of my working colleagues and friends was himself a Baluba. Read about ambush Six Irish soldiers were killed. The whole country came to a halt for the funeral of these six young Irish men, who paid the ultimate price for peace and evoked so much pride in ourselves as a nation, as they were laid to rest in Glasnevin cemetery.

Even before the arrival of our Celtic Tiger, our own English colonial history and decades of UN service by the Irish defense forces along with the presence of over 5,000 Irish Catholic and Protestant missionaries scattered in over 100 countries throughout the world, spoke of Ireland as a nation of peacemakers, in places where no one knew where Ireland was or anything about us. In more recent times, I have little doubt in my own mind that it was the fact that Ireland the peace maker, had the European Presidency in 1990, that our Prime Minister succeeded in securing the release of many of the hostages (including Irish man Brian Keenan) caught up in the Lebanon hostage stalemate that had gone on for years.

This is our heritage, of which we can still continue to be proud as a nation. However in recent years there seems to be a move afoot to draw back from this proud tradition. The upcoming proposed revised EU Constitutional Treaty referendum deserves our careful consideration as a nation in the coming months, in the light of our proud tradition. Through a lack of a proper explanation and dialogue on the consequences of this new Treaty, our Government may be leading us into becoming part of a European super state, supported by a full European army.

In recent years, the Government has decided to have 200 Irish soldiers join the EU Battle Groups, who already have had their first training exercises earlier this year. Battle Groups mark the creation of several rapidly deployable units for international intervention and tasks reaching up to full-combat situations. Interestingly, the European Union Battlegroups are intended to be deployable more rapidly and for shorter periods than the long-planned European Rapid Reaction Force. While these battle groups are envisaged to be ready to offer assistance in situations like the genocide in Rwanda, (what about Darfur today?) we have to be wary of this as a possible 1st step to becoming part of a full European army. If Ireland is integrated into an militarized European superstate allied to the US, this will ensure the full and active participation of all of Ireland in the resource wars of the 21st century. Gone will be our Irish neutrality.

The way forward for Ireland to protect it's neutrality, is to seek a protocol for Ireland to this revised European Constitution. There is a precedent in that a protocol was adopted to the European Maastricht Treaty, which excluded Denmark from the military structure of the EU. We need a similar protocol for Ireland if we are to retain our pride and our image as a nation that values peace above all else.

The decision by the Irish Government to allow the US military to use Shannon airport as a stop off point on their way to and from Iraq, is most worrying in the context of us loosing our recognition as a peace loving people. In the complex world of international relations, no Muslim radicals are going to take our traditional neutrality into account if they decide to act against this aspect of the US military involvement in Iraq. I believe that the action or inaction of our Government over the Shannon stop over, is putting Ireland directly in the firing line. Perhaps it is even more worrying that depite polls conducted by the reputable Landsdowne market research company, the government refuses to address the US military presence in Shannon issue. (58% polled against Shannon being used by the US Military and 76% voted that planes linked to rendition should be checked)

Growing up with that sense of Peace and Neutrality being values at the heart of Irishness, I was shocked and taken aback some months ago, to read in the business section of the Irish Times, of the profits being made by Adtec Teoranta/Timoney Holdings, a Navan based company who design and export military vehicles. Because of this, I did some extra study and discovered that there are at least 14 different Irish companies directly involved in this industry of death. (List of Companies & their wares) We all know that being involved in the military industrial world is indeed a profitable business. But it is truly worrying that our Government is willing to grant export licenses to Irish and foreign companies, whose products are designed to bring death to our fellow human beings. In 2001, a damning Amnesty International report highlighted the lack of effective monitoring by the Irish government in the whole area of the production and export of military goods. Surely the time has come for Ireland to legislate on arms brokering.

How long more can we justify the claim to the world, that Neutrality and a love of Peace are values at the heart of our identity as Irish?

More Countries Renounce Death Penalty, yet Number of Executions Up

ROME Aug 30th: - Even though more countries are renouncing the death penalty, more people were put to death last year -- 5,628 -- than in the past two years, an anti-death penalty group reported Thursday. Rome-based Hands Off Cain said the increase came because more countries that have capital punishment on their books actually resorted to it in 2006.

In its annual report on the death penalty, Hands Off Cain said the gradual trend of abolishing capital punishment continued, with 51 countries retaining the death penalty compared to 54 in 2005. But it said 27 countries had resorted to the death penalty in 2006, up from 24 in 2005. As a result, the number of executions increased, to at least 5,628 last year compared to 5,494 in 2005 and 5,530 in 2004. Overall, 146 countries and territories have renounced the death penalty to some extent, either through outright abolition or a moratorium, Hands Off Cain said. The group said uses reports from NGOs and mainstream media in compiling its report.

The report said China remained the top executioner, with unconfirmed reports that as many as 8,000 people are put to death annually. The report cited Chinese officials and academics as saying executions had decreased, however -- in part because of a new amendment requiring the Supreme Court to confirm all death sentences and for public hearings for appeals. Iran came in second in the group's top execution rankings. Hands Off Cain said Tehran doubled the number of people it put to death in 2006, executing at least 215 people compared to 113 in 2005, though it said the real number may be even higher. Pakistan also nearly doubled the number of executions in 2006, putting at least 82 people to death last year compared to 42 the year earlier. Hands Off Cain said both Iran and Pakistan executed minors in violation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States remained the only country in the Americas that carried out a death sentence in 2006. Fifty-three people were executed in the United States in 2006, down from 60 in 2005 and 59 in 2004, the group said.

Hands Off Cain was honoring Rwandan President Paul Kagame with a special award Thursday for his role in ending the death penalty in Rwanda. Earlier this year, the government approved a bill abolishing capital punishment, in part to encourage European and other countries to extradite suspected masterminds of the country's 1994 genocide. Rwanda has also signed on as a co-sponsor to a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions. Rwanda's actions, the group said, were of "exceptionally symbolic value, through which Rwanda has emblematically shown the world the possibility of an end to the absurd cycle of vengeance and that justice and lawfulness cannot be achieved with capital punishment." Hands Off Cain said it believed the U.N. resolution -- which has failed in previous years -- now has enough support to pass. Italy has been at the forefront of the U.N. campaign.
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Rich countries deadlocked over 2020 climate goals

VIENNA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Industrial nations were deadlocked on Thursday about whether to set stringent 2020 goals for cutting greenhouse gases at a first U.N. session about long-term climate targets, delegates said. A draft text at the Vienna meeting said rich countries should recognise a need for cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst effects of climate change. Russia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland objected that such goals would be too demanding after a first period of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol, the main plan for fighting global warming, ends in 2012, delegates said. The European Union was among those in favour of the non-binding range to guide future work by governments as part of a drive to shift from use of fossil fuels. "I hope we will be able to agree on an indicative range," Leon Charles of Grenada, the chair of the meeting who drafted the proposed text, told Reuters. Delegates from 158 countries are meeting in Vienna from Aug. 27 to 31 to try to agree ways to extend a fight against global warming after a first period of Kyoto ending in 2012.

Environmentalists urged all rich nations to take the lead and agree deep cuts to avert mounting effects likely to include more powerful storms, more floods, droughts and rising seas. "Only if industrialised countries agree to cut their emissions by at least 25-40 percent by 2020 does the world have a chance of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change," said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace. Kyoto binds 35 countries to cut emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Thursday's talks were the first chance for Kyoto backers to see if they could agree a range of cuts to guide talks on a new climate pact by the end of 2009.The United States is not part of Kyoto and not involved in the discussions. Charles's draft aims to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at a level that would limit global warming to between 2.0 and 2.4 Celsius (3.6 and 4.3 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The EU, which has said it will unilaterally cut emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 30 percent if other countries follow suit, says that any gain in temperatures above two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) will bring "dangerous" climate changes.
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McAleese Urges End to Bullying of Gays

Dublin August 31st: President Mary McAleese today called for a national change in attitudes to end the bullying of gay people. Addressing the International Association of Suicide Prevention Conference in Killarney, the President said the link between sexual identity and suicide had to be addressed. "Ireland is making considerable progress in developing a culture of genuine equality, recognition and acceptance of gay men and women," she said. "But there is still an undercurrent of both bias and hostility which young gay people must find deeply hurtful and inhibiting." The President said: "Homosexuality is a discovery, not a decision, and for many it is a discovery which is made against a backdrop where, within their immediate circle of family and friends as well as the wider society, they have long encountered anti-gay attitudes which will do little to help them deal openly and healthily with their own sexuality."

Ireland's suicide toll is around 500 every year. Young men make up 40 per cent of these, and elderly men comprise the second-highest at risk group. The President said the dangers of alcohol and cannabis to young people's psychological well-being had been well documented along with the effect of bullying. But Mrs McAleese said more discussion was needed on the link between sexual identity and suicide. The President also said Ireland had to go through an attitude change and develop a sensitive culture in dealing with people affected by mental problems to combat suicide.
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Catholic Bishops Speak Out - Defend Archbishop Ncube

HARARE, August 31, 2007 (CISA) - The Catholic bishops of Zimbabwe have come out in strong defence of President Mugabe’s fearless critic, Archbishop Pius Ncube, who faces accusations of adultery. The country’s nine bishops said the accusations were “outrageous and utterly deplorable” and “constitute an assault on the Catholic Church.”

The full text of the bishops’ statement is as follows: “The recent attacks by some politicians and the state media on the person of Archbishop Pius Ncube are outrageous and utterly deplorable. They constitute an assault on the Catholic Church, to which we take strong exception. The Catholic Church has never been and is not an enemy of Zimbabwe. “We are serving the people of our country pastorally and in many other ways, through over 60 mission hospitals, many orphanages and 174 primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions. Our record during the years of the liberation struggle speaks for itself.

“The matter of Archbishop Ncube is now before the High Court of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. It is, therefore, sub judice and should not be discussed in public until a verdict has been delivered by the courts. Moreover, the Constitution of Zimbabwe clearly defends the presumption of innocence of an accused person as a legal safeguard for a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. Acting in complete disregard of these universally respected conventions, the state media obtained and publicised, for days on end, in print and on television, video and photographic material, which violated the most fundamental personal rights of Archbishop Ncube and were utterly offensive to the public.

We repeat what we said in our recent Pastoral Letter: The people of Zimbabwe are suffering. Their freedom and fundamental human rights are violated daily with impunity, the shelves of the shops and supermarkets are empty, our currency has become worthless, the public health service has collapsed, the country’s main roads are lined with tens of thousands of citizens waiting for public transport, corruption is rampant and young people are risking their lives daily and in growing numbers to escape the catastrophe that our country has become. The crude attempts at diverting attention from these facts by intensifying the hate propaganda and character assassination against those Zimbabweans who, like Archbishop Ncube, have spoken out in defence of the oppressed, has not deceived ordinary Zimbabweans. Quite the contrary. Archbishop Ncube has fearlessly exposed the evils of the Gukurahundi massacres and of Operation Murambatsvina. For years, he has courageously and with moral authority advocated social justice and political action to overcome the grievous crisis facing our country. We support him fully in his present painful personal situation and ask all our faithful to remember him in their prayers.”
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UN Seeks Measures to Combat Climate Change Crises

Vienna Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rising sea levels are likely to prompt mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises, requiring urgent planning to guarantee food and other essentials, a UN conference on climate change heard. Funds of $67 billion annually in 2030 "may represent the lower bound of the amount actually required" to help people in developing countries adapt to climate change, the United Nations said in a report to the meeting in Vienna. Money is needed to ensure access to food supplies, healthcare and infrastructure. "These issues are certainly going to be a factor", said the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department, Harlan Watson, late yesterday. "Climate change can exacerbate already underlying tensions".

About 1,000 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries are attending the Vienna Climate Change Talks organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of land worldwide, equivalent to the size of Canada, has been damaged by human activity, according to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe report published in January. Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms are likely to result from a warmer climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in April.
The U.S. and U.K. militaries are taking note. Risk of Wa: "Expanding populations around the world are already placing a strain on scarce resources", U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said in a June speech in London. "Climate change will make this competition more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict". Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention, credited the U.K. with pushing climate change to the forefront of European Union policy considerations. The EU agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four decades. The IPCC on Feb. 2 said temperatures have risen by 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, and will rise by another 1.1 to 6.4 degrees this century. Global warming is "very likely" caused by human activities, such as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, according to the panel. The panel said 75 million to 250 million more people in Africa will be exposed to water shortages and rain-dependent agricultural yields could fall by 50 percent by 2020; the cost of adapting to changes brought on by global warming could be as much as 10 percent of economic output. Persistent Conflict: U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of "persistent conflict", Army Chief of Staff George Casey told the National Press Club in Washington on Aug. 14. Climate change raises the risk, he said. "We live close to a very large number of countries that will be vulnerable to climate change as sea levels rise", said New Zealand's climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, in an interview. "Future population shifts caused by climate change need to be explored further". Developing countries like Indonesia, with 250 million people spread over hundreds of islands, would like to see discussions about population shifts brought into treaty negotiations, Deputy Environment Minister Masnellyarti Hilman said. "We're already experiencing the problems of eroding coastlines and flooding", Hilman said, noting that talks will continue when the UN's climate change panel meets in Bali in December. Formal negotiations are due then on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Vienna talks, which began Aug. 27, end tomorrow.
By Jonathan Tirone and Mathew Carr
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Irish Aid Publishes Annual Report

DUBLIN Aug. 30th: Total Overseas Aid in 2006 was €814 million

Breakthrough year for support to tackle HIV/AIDS

Michael Kitt TD, Minister of State for Overseas Development, today launched the Irish Aid Annual Report for 2006. The report shows that Ireland spent a total of €814 million, or over 0.5% of GNP, last year on overseas development aid. Projects in over 90 countries were supported, with the focus remaining on eight programme countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Over €140 million was provided to NGOs and missionaries to support their initiatives to reduce poverty.

This commitment places Ireland firmly on course to reach the UN target of spending 0.7% of GNP on overseas aid by 2012. The commitment also places Ireland among the most generous donors in the world. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development recently ranked Ireland as the sixth most generous per capita aid donor. The central theme of the 2006 Annual Report is Irish Aid’s commitment to tackling HIV/AIDS. Last year the aid programme achieved its target of spending €100 million on HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Ireland now allocates a greater proportion of its overseas development aid to tackling HIV/AIDS than any other EU country. Launching the report, Minister of State Kitt said, “The struggle against HIV and AIDS is central to the fight against global poverty. The disease has a terrible impact on the individual, families and communities. In developing countries it devastates local economies and already weak health and education systems. Irish Aid is providing much needed support to many of the worst affected countries for treatment and prevention.”

The report also sets out Ireland’s response to natural disasters and complex emergencies. Irish Aid provided over €100 million in assistance to 40 countries to meet basic humanitarian and recovery needs following such events in 2006. This represented an increase of 47% on humanitarian relief funding in 2005.

Note to editors:
Increased support for the fight against HIV/AIDS stems from the commitment made by the Taoiseach at the United Nations in September 2005 to considerably increase resources to help tackle HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases at a global level. Irish Aid’s response to HIV/AIDS includes operations at programme country level (many of Irish Aid’s programme countries are among the worst affected by the pandemic), through NGOs, the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation and the Clinton Foundation.

The report also examines Irish Aid’s programmes of bilateral support in its eight programme countries and cooperation with the UN, EU and other international organisations in tackling international poverty.
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UN Sec. General to Visit Sudan

UNITED NATIONS, August 29 NY Times — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Tuesday that he would travel to Sudan, Chad and Libya next week to press for an end to fresh violence in Darfur and for speedy deployment there of a joint African Union United Nations peacekeeping force. He will travel to Sudan, Chad and Libya. “I want to go and see for myself the very difficult circumstances under which our forces will operate,” he said in a news conference at United Nations headquarters. “I also want to know, firsthand, the plight of those they seek to help.” He said he had expressed “deep concern” to the Sudanese authorities over reports of new attacks in the region and promised to make it part of his conversations with the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. “I am deeply concerned about the recent escalation in violence in Darfur that has caused the death of hundreds of people in the last few weeks alone,” he said. “I appeal to the government of Sudan and to all the parties to refrain from military action,” he said, and to choose “the path of peace and political dialogue.”

The joint force, 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilian police officers, will be the world’s largest peacekeeping operation and cost more than $2 billion a year. United Nations officials hope to begin deployment in October and complete it by the beginning of 2008. The Security Council approved the joint force on July 31 after the government in Khartoum relented in its persistent and lengthy objections to the presence of the United Nations in Sudan, which Mr. Bashir had characterized as recolonization. United Nations officials say that they have received enough pledges from African countries for infantry soldiers, which Sudan insists on, but that they still lack commitments from wealthier nations for engineering and communications specialists and attack helicopters.

At least 200,000 people have died in Darfur since rebel groups took up arms four years ago to fight for greater autonomy and government-armed Arab militias retaliated with a scorched-earth campaign. An estimated 2.5 million people have been forced from their land in Darfur, with 230,000 of them fleeing to Chad, where more than 170,000 Chadians have also been displaced, according to Mr. Ban. On Monday, the Security Council gave preliminary support to a force of 3,000 European Union soldiers, 300 United Nations-backed civilian officers and 1,150 Chadian officers to protect refugees in eastern Chad and the northeastern region of the Central African Republic. The plan, advanced by Mr. Ban on Aug. 16, is to be formalized at a Sept. 17 meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Union and endorsed at the same time in a Security Council resolution.

The United Nations already has a peacekeeping force in the south of Sudan, patrolling a cease-fire that ended a 20-year conflict unrelated to Darfur, and Mr. Ban will be going to Juba, where that force is headquartered. A second stop will take him to El Fasher, where the Darfur force will be based and where he will visit camps for displaced people. In Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, he will see Idriss Déby, the country’s president, but will not have time to go to border refugee camps, the United Nations said. Mr. Ban will also visit Tripoli, Libya, to meet with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, whom Mr. Ban called an “important regional player” in the Darfur crisis and credited with helping stage critical meetings and bringing rebel groups into negotiations.

In addition to the recent rise in violence, Sudan has reinforced doubts about its pledge to cooperate with the United Nations by abruptly expelling three Western officials from the country in the past week. Paul Barker, the country director for the aid agency CARE, was told Saturday to leave within 72 hours, and given no reason. Nuala Lawlor, the Canadian chargé d’affaires, and Kent Degerfelt, the envoy, were declared unwelcome for having had unacceptable contacts with opposition leaders. In Mr. Degerfelt’s case, the government reversed itself and permitted him to remain after obtaining an apology from the commission. Mr. Ban said he was committed to protecting aid workers and would insist on it when he saw Mr. Bashir in Khartoum.
By WARREN HOGE
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German Priest Urges Re-Think on HIV/AIDS

Trier, Germany (ENI) August 29th. A German Roman Catholic priest living in Cape Town and working with AIDS orphans has urged a re-consideration of the ban on condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, saying that the theology of his church on AIDS is more than 40 years out of date. In a book "God, AIDS, Africa", published in Germany during August, the Rev. Stefan Hippler appeals to Pope Benedict XVI to come up with a theological response to the AIDS pandemic facing Africa.
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Brown Honors Mandela

LONDON (AFP) Tuesday, August 28 - Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday praised former South African President Nelson Mandela as "the greatest and most courageous leader of our generation" ahead of the unveiling of a statue in his honour. Brown made the tribute outside his Downing Street base, just a day before a statue of the Nobel prize-winner is due to be unveiled in front of parliament. It will stand alongside those of former British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli.

"I'm proud to welcome to Downing Street the most inspiring, the greatest and most courageous leader of our generation," said Brown, standing in front of 10 Downing Street. Mandela, who said he was proud to visit Downing Street, joked: "My wife and I are happy to be here because, as you know, this was one of our rulers, but we overthrew them. "We are on an equal basis now."

The statue of Mandela, by the sculptor Ian Walters, measures 2.7 metres (nine feet) and will face the Houses of Parliament. Another statue of Mandela, also made by Walters, sits on the south bank of the River Thames.
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Human Trafficking Helps Spread HIV/AIDS

COLUMBO 22 August: Reuters UNAIDS estimates 5.4 million people were living with HIV in the Asia Pacific region in 2006, with anywhere between 140,000 and 610,000 people dying from AIDS-related illnesses. "Both human trafficking and HIV greatly threaten human development and security." "The link between human trafficking and HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin told the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

About 300,000 women and children are trafficked across Asia each year, acclerating the spread of HIV/AIDS, the United Nations said on Wednesday. "Trafficking ... contributes to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin, HIV/AIDS regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Major human trafficking routes run between Nepal and India and between Thailand and neighbours like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "Neither HIV/AIDS nor human trafficking have been integrated or mainstreamed adequately, either at policy or programmatic level." That makes it the world's second largest number of people living with HIV after sub-Saharan Africa, where 25.8 million people are infected with the virus. Conference host Sri Lanka has one of the lowest rates of HIV in Asia, with an estimated 5,000 infected people out of a population of around 20 million. Neighbouring India, by comparison, has the world's third highest HIV caseload after South Africa and Nigeria, with around 2.5 million people living with the virus.
By Ranga Sirilal
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Is Western Aid Making a Difference in Africa?

August 23, 2007: "Is this really how to save Africa?" asks Tanzanian columnist Ayub Rioba, a day after Bill Clinton has left Africa. "We appreciate generous and humane contributions from people like Bill Clinton," he writes in The Citizen, a respected Tanzanian national daily paper. "But we [Africans] must also show that we are doing something. We cannot sit just like couch potatoes waiting for others to come and give us medicine." "We have been made permanent recipients of aid, funds, scholarships, food, medicine, from developed countries.... And what exactly do we do with all that aid and assistance and help? Almost nothing. Since we gained independence, almost 50 years ago, we have been receiving aid permanently, and statistics today indicate that we are becoming poorer!" adds the columnist.

Outside attention to the continent has fueled thousands of successful programs ranging from eradicating smallpox and reducing infant mortality rates to helping more children go to school and more farmers get microloans. But, despite the aid, the number of poor people in Africa has almost doubled in the past decade. Burdened as Africa is with government debt, trade barriers, droughts, and sickness, some 46 percent of Africans survive on less than a dollar a day. Nearly half of those make do with less than 50 cents a day, according to the development policy research unit the University of Cape Town in South Africa. According to the United Nations, life expectancy on the continent is falling, averaging just 46 years, in large part because of AIDS.

There are different schools of thought when it comes to explaining Africa's decline – and how to stop it. Mr. Rioba fits squarely in the "governance first" camp, which argues that the onus is on Africans to better their own governments and behavior – not on outsiders. For decades, countries such as Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) under Mobutu Sese Seko received billions of dollars in aid and loans – much of which was squandered by corrupt and incompetent officials. Against this first camp sits the so-called "poverty first" camp, often represented by Columbia University economist and UN Millennium Project director Jeffrey Sachs, who says the solution to Africa's problems lies in tackling poverty, and that this can definitely be achieved with sufficient aid. A third group believes in aid, but argues it's not the quantity that is problematic, it's the way it has been administered. If ending poverty were so simple, argues William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, why has the $2.3 trillion spent over the last five decades not done more? "The biggest difference between Sachs and me is that he thinks aid can end poverty and I think it cannot," he says. "The end of poverty comes about for home-grown reasons, as domestic reformers grope their way towards more democracy, cleaner and more accountable government, and free markets," he says. Mr. Easterly says aid can certainly help alleviate the suffering of the poor, but that "the problem with aid is the people implementing the aid projects have weak incentives because they are never held accountable for results."

Mr. Sachs, in turn, poses: Is $2.3 trillion really so much? That sum, he says, is "from all donor countries in the world to all developing countries for all purposes," which means, if you work it out, around $16 per person per year in the developing world. "To say that aid was gargantuan and that it failed is a cruel joke. It was neither gargantuan, nor did it fail when it was applied in good faith for developmental purposes (rather than for the cold war, or to ship US grains or to pay high-priced consultants)," he argues. Sachs points out that the US spends more than $600 billion per year on the Pentagon, and less than one-hundredth of that in help for all of Africa. "One day's Pentagon spending would pay for all the bed nets [to stop malaria] for every sleeping site in Africa for five years," he charges. "People are hungry. People are dying. There are countless proven and effective ways to help, and which can extricate people from poverty in the long run. The drama is whether American politics can rouse itself to take note," he says.

In his quest for spreading this message and increasing aid, Sachs often turns to superstars, and many have embraced his ideas and his can-do attitude. Bono calls him "my professor." Actor Brad Pitt sings his praises. Madonna is a big supporter, and Angelina Jolie filmed a 2005 MTV special, "The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa" that promotes his work. Vanity Fair, in its recent Africa issue billed him an "adviser to the UN and movie stars" and a "savior" of developing nations. "Sachs offers very simple, concrete, and measurable solutions to specific developmental problems," says John Prendergast of ENOUGH, a group with a mission to "prevent genocide and mass atrocities" in Africa. "He doesn't necessarily have answers to major crises like Darfur and eastern Congo, but he does have important responses to malaria, dirty water, and bad sanitation. That is an important baseline for further socioeconomic development in the long run." But Easterly is not impressed, calling Sachs a "messianic crusader who ... skillfully uses celebrity and media for the cause." Celebrities "love" Sachs, explains Easterly, "because he promises a huge payoff to Western aid efforts and describes the problem as easy to solve, if you just have a few celebrity videos and concerts." Easterly suggests aid dividends will almost always be modest. The solution requires donors to help continuously and be accountable for results. But he says, that is just "not as ... appealing to the People magazine crowd."
By Danna Harman | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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Mozambique Mine - Six children Killed

MAPUTO August 26, 2007: SIX children from the same family were killed when a landmine left over from Mozambique's civil war exploded in the southeast African country, the interior ministry said today. The children found the landmine while playing on Thursday in a field behind their home near the village of Namacura in central Mozambique, the ministry said. One of the children wanted to open the explosive device, which resembled a can, causing the blast. The victims were between the ages of five and 16, public television reported.

Some 15 years after the end of the 1976-1992 civil war, more than 100sq km remain to be de-mined in the country nearly twice the size of California, especially in rural areas. About 10 people die each year in accidental mine explosions in Mozambique. International financial partners have, however, withdrawn from a de-mining program begun in 1994 to work in countries where the problem is considered more urgent. As a result, the government in Maputo has said it will not be able to reach its goal of freeing the country of mines by 2010. In March, an explosion ripped apart Mozambique's main armoury and killed 119 people. Many of the explosives that went off in the blast were left over from the civil war.
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink