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DAWN Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:39:25 PKT
HAMILTON: Hurricane Igor battered Bermuda with ferocious winds, waves and rain on Sunday, felling trees and power lines in the Atlantic island chain in one of the worst storms to hit the British overseas territory.
The US National Hurricane Center said the core of the “very large” hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds near 75 miles per hour (120 kph), was passing just west of Bermuda, a popular tourist destination and wealthy global insurance center more than 600 miles (1,000 km) east of the US East Coast.
Residents reported uprooted trees, flying debris, widespread power outages, some flooding of streets and homes and boats torn free from moorings by pounding waves battering the coast. But there were no immediate reports of casualties.
At 11 p.m. EDT/0300 GMT, Igor's center was about 40 miles (65 km) west of Bermuda, moving north northeast at 14 miles (22 km) per hour.
Hurricane force winds extended out about 90 miles (150 km) from Igor’s center, and radar images......
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GUARDIAN Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:26:22 GMT
Hot on the heels of the Gates Foundation $10 billion donation to vaccines and Bill and Melinda's impassioned pleas to governments to increase their aid comes President Obama's budget announcement, which has attracted both praise and blame.
Among those who say he is a good guy is the Global Health Council, lauding him for a 9% increase in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget request to Congress. This is their analysis of how the money is to be parcelled out.
The Council is happy that there are increases for maternal and child health and malaria and family planning (Obama lifted the Global Gag or Mexico City rule imposed by Bush which prevented any US funds going to overseas organisations including UN agencies which were prepared even to discuss abortion with women).
But other organisations are not happy and foremost among the critics is the formidable Jeff Sachs of Columbia University, who has labelled the budget request a Very Big Disappointment. Read his full comments on the Global Aids Alliance site here. Sachs plays the security card and reproaches the Obama administration:
If we invest only four percent of the military spending in the development approach it's going to be a very unhappy world and a very dangerous world for us in terms of health, in terms of poverty, in terms of conflict. I expected better of the administration. This President campaigned with wonderful words pointing out that development was a path to national security but he's not following through in real programmatic terms.
It seems a shame if scarcity of cash means Aids has to be played off against maternal health, when both urgently need more money. And US donations to the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, TB and Malaria, which has proven to be a very effective way of channelling donor cash into good disease-fighting programmes in poor countries, usually attract more European government cash.
Obama administration
Health
International aid and development
Aids and HIV
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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GUARDIAN Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:11:00 GMT
Earthquake measuring 6.1 hits Haiti as country reels from devastation eight days ago
A second strong earthquake hit Haiti today, waking people from their beds and sending others running into the streets in panic.
The US Geological Survey said the quake measured 6.1, and hit a country already ravaged by an earthquake eight days ago.
The tremor was centered 26 miles north-west of Jacmel, and there were no immediate reports of injuries. The US Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of 13.7 miles.
Ed Pilkington, the Guardian correspondent in Port-au-Prince, 35 miles from the epicentre, said this morning's quake was strong enough to be felt in the Haitian capital.
Pilkington tweeted: "just been woken by my bed shaking in #Haiti. another after shock."
The Associated Press said "wails of terror" could be heard from people as they fled buildings already left in ruins by last week's quake. It was not immediately possible to assess what additional damage the new quake may have caused.
Last week's huge quake killed an estimated 200,000 people in Haiti, left 250,000 injured and made 1.5 million people homeless. A massive international aid effort has been launched, but is struggling with overwhelming logistical problems.
Search-and-rescue teams have emerged from the ruins with some improbable success stories including the rescue of 69-year-old woman who said she prayed constantly during her week under the rubble.
Ena Zizi had been at a church meeting at the residence of Haiti's Roman Catholic archbishop when last week's earthquake struck, trapping her. She was rescued yesterday by a Mexican disaster team.
Zizi said that after the quake, she spoke back and forth with a vicar who also was trapped. But after a few days, he fell silent, and she spent the rest of the time praying and waiting.
"I talked only to my boss, God," she said. "And I didn't need any more humans."
Authorities said close to 100 people had been pulled from wrecked buildings by international search-and-rescue teams. Efforts continued, with dozens of teams sifting through Port-au-Prince's crumbled homes and buildings for signs of life. But survivors expressed frustration with the slow pace of the relief effort.
"We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don't know whose responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon," said Sophia Eltime, a 29-year-old mother of two who has been living under a bedsheet with seven members of her extended family.
The World Food Programme said more than 250,000 ready-to-eat food rations had been distributed in Haiti by yesterday, reaching only a fraction of the 3 million people thought to be in desperate need.
The WFP said it needs to deliver 100m ready-to-eat rations in the next 30 days. Based on pledges from the US, Italy and Denmark, it has 16m in the pipeline.
So far, international relief efforts have been disorganised, disjointed and insufficient to satisfy the great need. Governments have pledged nearly $1bn (£640m) in aid, and thousands of tons of food and medical supplies have been shipped. But much remains in warehouses, or diverted to the neighboring Dominican Republic. The damaged port and impassable roads complicate efforts to get aid to the people.
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said the military will send a port-clearing ship with cranes aboard to Port-au-Prince. It will be used to remove debris that is preventing many larger ships carrying relief supplies from docking.
The UN security council voted unanimously yesterday to approve an additional force of 3,500 police and soldiers for earthquake-devastated Haiti, amid rising concern over outbreaks of looting by desperate survivors and the re-emergence of notorious gang leaders who escaped when the country's prisons collapsed.
Haiti
Natural disasters and extreme weather
Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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GUARDIAN Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:31:00 GMT
City becomes first in Latin America to pass legislation, as President Calderón's party vows to launch legal challenge
Mexico City has become the first city in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage, giving gay couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children.
The bill passed the capital's local assembly by 39 votes to 20 yesterday as supporters chanted: "Yes, we could! Yes, we could!"
The city's leftwing mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, of the Democratic Revolution party, had been widely expected to sign the measure into law.
The assembly has made several decisions that have been unpopular elsewhere in the deeply Roman Catholic country, including legalising abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
That sparked a backlash, with the majority of Mexico's other 32 states enacting legislation declaring that life begins at conception.
The conservative National Action party, led by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, vowed to challenge the new gay marriage law in the courts.
However, homosexuality is increasingly accepted in Mexico, with gay couples holding hands in parts of the capital and the annual gay pride parade attracting tens of thousands of people.
The bill called for a change of the definition of marriage in the city's civil code.
It is currently defined as the union of a man and a woman, and the new definition will be "the free uniting of two people".
The change will enable same-sex couples to adopt, apply for bank loans, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse – rights they were denied under the civil unions allowed in the city.
"We are so happy," said Temistocles Villanueva, a 23-year-old film student, who celebrated the new legislation by kissing his boyfriend outside the city assembly.
"For centuries, unjust laws banned marriage between blacks and whites or Indians and Europeans," Victor Romo, of the Democratic Revolution party, said. "Today, all barriers have disappeared."
However, Armando Martinez, the president of the College of Catholic Attorneys, said politicians in the city had "given Mexicans the most bitter Christmas".
"They are permitting adoption [by gay couples], and in one stroke of the pen have erased the terms mother and father," he said.
Only seven countries – Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium – allow gay marriages.
The Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, became the first Latin American city to legalise same-sex civil unions for gay and lesbian couples in 2002.
Four other Argentine cities later did the same, as did Mexico City in 2007 and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Only Uruguay has legalised civil unions nationwide.
Buenos Aires officials introduced a bill for legalising gay marriage in the national congress in October, but it stalled without a vote and officials blocked same-sex weddings because of conflicting judicial rulings.
Many people in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America remain opposed to gay marriage, and the Roman Catholic church has announced its opposition.
Mexico
Gay rights
Argentina
Catholicism
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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GUARDIAN Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:39:44 GMT
After Rom Houben was found to be conscious for 23 years, Helen Pidd looks at similar cases around the world
In 1988 Jan Grzebski, a Polish railway worker, fell in front of a train and was diagnosed as being in a coma. In 2007, he "woke up" to learn the iron curtain had fallen and he had gained 11 grandchildren. Doctors discovered he had been conscious throughout.
Terry Wallis of Arkansas fell into a coma after a road accident in 1984. When he woke up 19 years later, his wife had gone off with another man, had three children and was embroiled in a legal battle over who was deemed his legal guardian. His mother was with him the day he woke up and a nurse asked: "Terry, who is that?" He opened his eyes and replied, "Mom".
In 1996 Patricia White Bull from Albuquerque, New Mexico, woke after 16 years in a persistent vegetative state, scaring the life out of a nurse who was tucking in her bedding by shouting, "Don't do that!". She had fallen unconscious during the birth of her fourth child.
Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year in a coma. Only days before, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of her feeding tube.
Mark Newton from Hertfordshire fell into a coma in 1996 after surfacing too quickly while diving. Doctors considered him brain dead and recommended turning off his life support. His mother resisted and he woke up after six months. He had been aware of what was happening around him, but could not communicate.
Belgium
Health
Helen Pidd
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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GUARDIAN Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:06:52 GMT
In the Midwestern heartland, police are encountering a new social evil: trafficking, often involving women and children who are forced to work as prostitutes or unpaid labour; and the outcomes can be brutal.
Human trafficking has become a major issue in the Midwest heartland of America, causing some campaigners to dub it a modern form of slavery.
Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour. Experts believe that, when cases of internal trafficking are added, the total number of victims could be up to five times larger. And increasing numbers of trafficked individuals are being transported thousands of miles from America's coasts and into heartland states such as Ohio and Michigan.
"It is not only a crime. It is an abomination," said Professor Mark Ensalaco, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, Ohio, who organised a recent conference on the issue. In Ohio a human trafficking commission has just been set up to study the problem, while in the northern Ohio city of Toledo a special FBI task force is tackling the issue. For many local law enforcement officials, it is a bewildering new world.
In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labour and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.
He emphasised the risks to the girl's baby after it had been born if the doctors had not been so alert: "Like the mother, the baby could have ended up a victim for years to come. Who knows? Future labour? Future person to traffic?"
Ohio anti-trafficking campaigner Phil Cenedella, founder of Combating Trafficking Anywhere, believes that the baby was destined to be sold off by her captors. "They would have put the kid on the black market. It is crazy that this is happening." Human trafficking – defined as forcing someone against their will to work for no reward – has been dubbed modern slavery. At the Dayton conference, it was discussed as a growing social problem, not in some far-off foreign land, but among the cornfields of Ohio.
"The problems are broader than we realised," said Ohio's attorney general, Richard Cordray. "What we want to do is find and disrupt these networks."
One of the country's leading anti-trafficking advocates is Theresa Flores, a former victim. Flores puts a different kind of face on human trafficking in America. She is white, middle-class and blond and looks the epitome of a suburban American woman. She grew up in a wealthy suburb of Detroit in Michigan and did well at school. Yet Flores tells a nightmarish story of two years being drugged, raped and sold for sex.
Flores, whose ordeal was turned into a book called The Sacred Bath: An American Teen's Story of Modern Day Slavery, was attacked and raped when she was 15. Her assailant used the threat of photographs he had taken during her rape to force her into having sex with strangers. She became the effective prisoner of a drugs gang that used her as a prostitute and kept her earnings, or gave her away free to gang members as a "reward". "People don't think that trafficking looks like me or that it can happen to someone who came from a nice neighbourhood. But it does. People need to see outside that box," said Flores.
Flores said that her lowest point came when the gang took her to a seedy motel where she was raped by as many as two dozen men. She woke up alone, abused and with no clothes. "I was told I would die if I told anyone....
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NEWS SUMMARY
Gulf of Mexico oil workers found
US Cuba envoy in prisoner impasse
Power restored to US and Mexico
Blackout in Mexico and California – in pictures
Mass blackout hits California, Arizona and Mexico
Mexico drug radio network smashed
Mexico seeks more for casino fire
US envoy on Cuba prisoner mission
VIDEO: Mexico's ancient drink back in fashion
VIDEO: Mexican dancers set world record
Officer held over Mexico attack
Out of luck
Heads roll over botched gun sting
VIDEO: Arrests over Mexico casino arson
Mourning in Monterrey
More than 50 dead in casino arson as Mexico drug violence spreads
52 killed in Mexico casino attack
Scores dead in attack on Mexico casino - video
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