Elsewhere Today 426
Aljazeera:
Iraq governor dies in bomb attack
MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2007
9:44 MECCA TIME, 6:44 GMT
An Iraqi governor has died in a roadside bomb attack, the second assassination of a provincial leader in nine days.
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, governor of al-Muthana province, died when the blast hit his convoy in the provincial capital Samawa at about 8am (0400GMT) on Monday, said Zaman Hadi, head of security at the city's general hospital.
At least one other person died in the blast, with two more seriously injured, according to police reports.
On August 11, the governor and police chief of Qadasiya, a province in southern Iraq, died in a roadside bomb attack.
Both governors were members of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), a group led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shia Muslim politician.
Supporters of the council have fought the Mahdi army, created by Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, for control of Iraq's oil-rich south.
Shia and Sunni groups have been fought sectarian battles in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003.
However, recent months have seen intra-Shia violence between the Badr Organisation, the SIIC's armed wing, and the Mahdi army.
"This is part of a settling of scores prior to the elections next year," said a senior Shia official who declined to be named.
"I don't think there will be a Shia bloodbath because a decision has been taken to act with restraint. But more assassinations of some figures are expected," he said.
Riyadh Majeedh, Samawa's acting mayor, said Iraqi security forces had been deployed in the city and that an indefinite curfew had been imposed.
Factional discord
Hoda Abdel Hamid, Al Jazeera's Iraq analyst, said the successive attacks against provincial governors signified a marked rise in Shia-on-Shia violence.
"The significance [of this particular attack] is in the succession of attacks against governors. I think it is showing that there is intra-Shia fighting that is getting bigger and bolder every day."
"We have seen on the ground already the Badr brigade, which is really the police force in southern Iraq, fighting with the Mahdi army."
Fighting broke out between various Shia factions in Samawa, which is about 370km southeast of the capital Baghdad, in July.
Abdel Hamid said the intra-Shia violence was in contrast to Washington's tradtional assessment that al-Qaeda is the biggest cause of destabilsation in Iraq.
"There is a lot of factional fighting that is nothing to do with al-Qaeda. The national intelligence estimate in the US has actually pinpointed al-Qaeda as the fifth threat to Iraq's stability rather than the first threat," she said.
"What is really destabilising Iraq now is factional fighting... al-Qaeda is behind about 15 per cent of the attacks over the first six months of the year."
Al-Muthana was the first province that was transferred to Iraqi control by the British army last year.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B4A4768B-D28A-4F91-8970-17B666E1A8EB.htm
AllAfrica:
P-Harcourt Residents Groan Under Low Economic Activities
By George Onah & Emma Amaize
Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS
20 August 2007
Port Harcourt
BUSINESS and commercial activities in Port Harcourt and environs remain largely paralysed, with residents groaning under the hardship caused by the situation. Only a few business operators manage to provide skeletal services.
The state government, Friday, imposed a dusk to dawn curfew following the mayhem unleashed by cultists and the showdown between them and the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) last week.
Some of the major oil and gas companies operating in the state say it is still early to quantify loses to their operations as a result of the situation in Port Harcourt.
Panic-stricken residents of the old Port Harcourt township spent the better part of the weekend to relocate to the suburbs which have enjoyed relative peace and tranquility, while those who could, left for neighbouring states.
Some other residents in the old township, seen as the major theatre of the orgy of violence, were seen stocking up groceries in the event of a repeat of the orgy of violence that rocked the capital city.
Meanwhile, telephone text messages circulated in the city have added to air of uncertainty over the safety of life and property.
"Inside sources indicate that the cult gangs intend to have a final showdown this weekend (last weekend) in Port Harcourt to show dominance. Expect some random skirmishes throughout Port Harcourt environs. Advised to limit all non-essential movements and remain in a secured location. Please forward this message to friends and family," one of such text messages read.
Blockades on the streets and roads by the JTF have also affected eateries, hotels, cyber cafes, newspapers and food vendors and operators of medium and small scale businesses.
"Reduction of time by government for Okada riders (motorcyclists) to operate has even worsened matters. They close at 6 p.m. But because of the curfew, they all hurry to leave the streets even at 5.30 p.m. That means that we have to close business at 5.00 p.m," a resident lamented.
Soboma reportedly regrets attack on soldiers
It was gathered that Soboma George, the gang leader feared dead in last week's bloody encounter with the military ia already regreting ordering his boys to confront the military. He was said to have mistaken military men who stormed his base for members of a rival cult gang, who had gone to attack his base.
One source said George was sighted at Abonema Town, Akuku Toru Local Government, in the state.
The source quoted the gang leader as saying members of rival groups used to dress in military and mobile police uniform, "sometimes when they come to attack us, so I thought the people who came were those people.
"They bombed the place I was and I immediately ordered my boys to fight back, but when I saw helicopters firing in the air and many army boys and armoured tanks around my territory, it was then I knew that they were real army people.
"It had become too late to stop them at that time, so I escaped and told my boys to find their way," the witness said. Another man who said he was Soboma's associate said it was not true that the man was killed, adding: "I saw him with my eyes."
2 soldiers allegedly abducted
Vanguard also gathered yesterday that two soldiers were abducted at Marine Base, the major theatre of last week's military/cultists encounter by Soboma's boys, while some other soldiers were critically injured.
However, the spokesman for the JTF and the military could not be reached for confirmation of the abduction.
A resident named Otokiri said they were aware of the presence of Soboma's boys in the area, "but we could not do anything. Even the police were aware of his presence in the base, nobody could do anything.
"The other day, they attacked the police headquarters to free Soboma from detention. They killed policemen and damaged police property, and nothing came out of it. Look at the distance between Marine Base and police headquarters, just a stone's throw, yet he operated freely all these years. There is even a police station in Marine Base," he said.
The effects of the destruction in last week's encounter including the destruction of a 15MVA transformer at Marine Base injection sub-station belonging to the PHCN are still evident.
The organisation said in a statement: "Consequent upon the damage, residents of Station Road, Marine Base, Borokiri and Industry Road would be without power supply for some days." It said the problem would take some time to be rectified.
The 14 pumps of the 20 pumps at the NNPC Mega station on Lagos Street, destroyed in the shoot-out between the cult groups are also a reminder of the deadly activities and presence of the cult groups as well as rival street gangs in Port Harcourt.
Police to conduct test on corpses
Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Mike Okiro, said Friday in Port-Harcourt that contrary to reports that George was killed in the operation by the JTF, the police were yet to ascertain if he was really dead, adding that three bodies of some cultists who engaged the Task Force in a shoot-out were recovered and efforts were on to carry out an autopsy on the bodies to determine if Soboma was one of them.
An associate of Soboma George, who preferred anonymity, also told Vanguard, yesterday: "George is not dead, he is still alive. I called his line to find out if he was dead, and he called back later to say that he was not dead."
Vanguard requested to speak with Soboma, but his associate said: "It is not possible, we cannot grant such request now because the situation is still hot. In fact, Soboma cannot speak to anybody now."
He said the gang leader who got wind of the invasion of the hide-out by the military escaped before the soldiers who were bombarding the place could reach him."He left there physically, he did not disappear. He knew that the soldiers were coming, he got prior information but you don't expect him to wait while his boys and the soldiers were involved in a gun battle. He escaped from the place. That is the story. He is still alive," he said.
Meanwhile, the national coordinator of the South-South Liberation Movement (SSLM), Mr. John Adie, yesterday, condemned the killings in Port Harcourt, sea piracy and commercial hostage taking in the Niger Delta. He, however, declared support for the genuine moves at overcoming the Federal Government's imperialism, exploitations and divisive strategies in the region.
"The crisis in Rivers State is political and not for the emancipation of the Niger Delta people. How on earth would you maim and kill the very people you claim to emancipate? We advise the youths to reserve their strength and resources to fight our enemy,"he said.
Copyright © 2007 Vanguard. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708200008.html
Arab News:
Mother of All Fiascos!
Ibtissam Al-Bassam, Arab News
Monday, 20, August, 2007 (06, Sha`ban, 1428)
The following is just a sample of this week’s breaking news:
“Four truck bombs killed at least 190 people on Tuesday in two villages in a Kurdish-speaking area near the Syrian border, destroying houses and sending hundreds of the wounded to at least six hospitals as far as 150 miles away, the Iraqi authorities said.”
“Five US soldiers were killed south of Baghdad on Saturday in two separate incidents, the US military said Sunday”
“Police in Germany found six young Italian men shot in the head execution-style outside a train station in the western city of Duisburg Wednesday in an attack officials believe was part of a feud between organized crime clans.”
“Three senior German police officers charged with protecting the German ambassador were killed and one was wounded in a roadside bomb near the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, German and Afghan officials said.”
I wonder how many have read the heartrending story of Fatima Jbouri, published in the “International Herald Tribune” a few days ago?
Fatima is a nine-month-old baby. She is half-Sunni and half-Shiite. On July 25 her mother and uncle were shot in the head three times each, while her 7-year-old brother fled. The Iraqis found the dead bodies of the mother and uncle. Her siblings were found in neighboring houses. The young brother kept asking, “Where is my sister?”
The unfortunate baby was found among piled garbage, hidden under a metal sheet in choking heat. Although she weighed less than half the normal weight of babies her age, she was recovering well. She survived, but what future awaits her and what future awaits her siblings and the increasing number of orphaned and wounded babies and children in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia and other war-torn countries? Baby Fatima’s is one of millions of man-made tragedies in our cruel, so— called “global village.”
Barbarism, greed, ethnic cleansing, brutality, instability, insecurity, mad wars, natural and man-made disasters are spreading like a pandemic. Bombs are exploding everywhere claiming innocent lives, slaughtering whole families at one go, destroying livelihoods and leaving millions wounded, widowed, orphaned, heart-broken, hungry, thirsty and destitute. Manslaughter, cruelty, aggression, destruction, torture, kidnapping, discrimination, injustice and targeted assassinations are fanning the fire of hatred and resentment and promoting extremism and terrorism.
We are sick of the global carnage and the smell of fresh blood that continues to flow. It is six years since we entered a pitch-black tunnel. Is there no way out?
A small ruthless minority has disturbed our universe. A few dishonest historians have distorted history and are busy changing historical facts. The large majority is honest, compassionate and craves for peace. The hearts of most men and women are full of kindness. Most eyes fill with tears when they watch the horrific images of mutilated bodies and hear the cries and screams of the wounded, the orphaned, the bereaved and the victims of wars that could and should have been avoided.
Yet there is a deafening silence in the face of the suffering, misery and injustice inflicted upon millions of innocent people. One wonders why there is inaction, or at best slow reaction to the horrendous crimes daily committed against humanity in our “civilized” world. Has the spinning machine inflicted a severe dizziness on all of us that we can no longer see the ugly facts on the ground? Have the great achievements of hard-working spin doctors made it impossible to distinguish between truth and flagrant lies? Or is silence a feature and a trademark of our cruel world, where the will of a bloodthirsty minority overrules the wish of the peace-loving majority?
We miss a time — not long ago — when human lives were valued, when mass killing was shocking, when the sight of blood was nauseating, when world religions were revered and world cultures appreciated, when cultural diversity was hailed, when different races were respected, when our daily language was free of the words death, suspects, torture, terror, terrorism, insurgents and insurgency, when discussions were focused on promoting peace instead of making wars.
Anyone twelve years and older must recall the good old days, when mass slaughter was not a daily occurrence, when the screams of the bereaved and wounded were not heard every time we watched the news, when suspects were considered innocent until proven guilty, when images of horrific devastation and cruel deaths were not played and replayed every hour on our TV screens, when traveling was a pleasure, not an ordeal, when people moved around freely and safely, when arrival and departure in and out of seaports, railway stations and airports was not a tortuous experience, when travelers were not searched like thieves and criminals, when passengers did not have to wait hours for their luggage to arrive, when suitcases were rarely lost, when the tension between Islam and the West was nonexistent.
Every now and then the honest raise their voices to defend truth. Every now and then peace lovers denounce the horrendous crimes, which are daily committed against innocent civilians. Every now and then people call on their governments to restore sense and balance to our shaky universe. Every now and then intellectuals and Nobel prizewinners plead with decision-makers to end the mother of all fiascos. Every now and then humanitarian organizations plead with governments to lift the sanctions, which inflict misery and starvation on the innocent. Unfortunately, honest voices are rarely heard, or when heard often overlooked or silenced. Good motives are often intentionally or unintentionally misinterpreted and benevolent actions often lead to legal hurdles.
Is our world a 21st century Titanic, sinking in rivers of human blood of our own creation?
When our despair and hopelessness reach the zenith, a spark of light appears and tells us all is not lost yet.
On July 18 the spark came form South Africa, where Nelson Mandela’s 89 birthday was celebrated.
Mandela is an icon of peace, tolerance, harmony and forgiveness. He is a symbol of hope in our dark world and a reminder that the road to justice and peace is long, difficult, hazardous, bumpy, but not a cul-de-sac. In his struggle and victory the oppressor and the oppressed, the aggressor and the occupied can all find lessons. His struggle against injustice assures the oppressed and the occupied that with patience, courage and persistence difficult battles can be won. His victory teaches the oppressor and the aggressor that truth and justice always triumph at the end and that hearts and minds can be won only with humility and kindness.
Next month the world will remember the disappearance of the Twin Towers and 3,000 innocent souls, of all colors, all faiths and all nationalities who were buried under the rubble. Let us also remember the thousands who have been killed, wounded, orphaned, widowed and displaced since that dark day in history. Let us mark the occasion by joining hands to restore stability, security, order and sanity to a world gone mad.
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=100149&d=20&m=8&y=2007
Asia Times:
US steps closer to war with Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
The Bush administration has leaped toward war with Iran by, in essence, declaring war with the main branch of Iran's military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which it plans to brand as a terrorist organization.
A logical evolution of US President George W Bush's ill-defined, boundless "war on terror", the White House's move is dangerous to the core, opening the way for open confrontation with Iran. This may begin in Iraq, where the IRGC is reportedly most active and, ironically, where the US and Iran have their largest common denominators.
A New York Times editorial has dismissed this move as "amateurish" and a mere "theatric" on the part of the lame-duck president, while at the same time admitting that it represents a concession to "conflict-obsessed administration hawks who are lobbying for military strikes". The political analysts who argue that the main impact of this initiative is "political" are plain wrong. It is a giant step toward war with Iran, irrespective of how well, or poorly, it is thought of, particularly in terms of its immediate and long-term implications, let alone the timing of it.
Coinciding with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's highly publicized trip to Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, the news received front-page coverage in the New York Times, next to a photograph of Ahmadinejad and his Afghan host, President Hamid Karzai, as if intended to spoil Ahmadinejad's moment by denigrating the Iranian regime. Just two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice implicitly put Iran on a par with the Soviet Union by invoking comparisons to the Cold War, and in essence compared it to al-Qaeda.
Thus if an unintended side-effect of the Cold War terminology was to enhance Iran's global image, the "terrorist" label for the IRGC aims to deliver a psychological blow to Iran by de-legitimizing the country.
Also, it serves the United States' purpose at the United Nations Security Council, where a British-prepared draft of a new round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program has been floating around for a while and will likely be acted on this autumn. The draft calls for tightening the screws on Iran by broadening the list of blacklisted Iranian companies and even may lead to the interdiction of Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. This is indeed a dangerous move that could easily trigger open confrontation.
With the window of opportunity for Bush to use the "military option" closing because of the US presidential elections next year, the administration's hawks - "it is now or never" - have received a huge boost by the move to label the IRGC as terrorists. It paves the way for potential US strikes at the IRGC's installations inside Iran, perhaps as a prelude to broader attacks on the country's nuclear facilities. At least that is how it is being interpreted in Iran, whose national-security concerns have skyrocketed as a result of the labeling.
"The US double-speak with Iran, talking security cooperation on the one hand and on the other ratcheting up the war rhetoric, does not make sense and gives the impression that the supporters of dialogue have lost in Washington," a prominent Tehran University political scientist who wished to remain anonymous told the author.
The US has "unfettered" itself for a strike on Iran by targeting the IRGC, and that translates into heightened security concerns. "The United States never branded the KGB [Russian secret service] or the Soviet army as terrorist, and that shows the limits of the Cold War comparison," the Tehran political scientist said. His only optimism: there are "two US governments" speaking with divergent voices, ie, "deterrence diplomacy and preemptive action", and "that usually, historically speaking, spells policy paralysis".
However, no one in Iran can possibly place too much faith on that kind of optimism. Rather, the net effect of this labeling, following the recent "shoot to kill" order of Bush with regard to Iranian operatives in Iraq accused of aiding the anti-occupation insurgents, is to elevate fears of a US "preemptory" strike on Iran. Particularly concerned are many top government officials, lawmakers and present or former civil and military functionaries who are or were at some point affiliated with the IRGC.
There is also a legal implication. Under international law, the United States' move could be challenged as illegal, and untenable, by isolating a branch of the Iranian government for selective targeting. This is contrary to the 1981 Algiers Accord's pledge of non-interference in Iran's internal affairs by the US government. [1]
Should the terror label on the IRGC be in place soon, US customs and homeland-security officials could, theoretically, arrest members of Ahmadinejad's delegation due to travel to the UN headquarters in New York next month because of suspected ties to the IRGC. Even Ahmadinejad, with his past as a commander of the Basij Corps, a paramilitary arm of the IRGC, risks arrest.
The US has opened a Pandora's box with a hasty decision that may have unintended consequences far beyond its planned
coercive diplomacy toward Iran. The first casualty could be the US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's security, although this would simultaneously appease Israeli hawks who dread dialogue and any hints of Cold War-style detente between Tehran and Washington.
It would also become more difficult for Syria to collaborate with Iran with respect to Lebanon's Hezbollah, who owe much to the IRGC since their inception in the early 1980s. The consensus in Iran is that chaos in Iraq is in Israel's interests, but not that of the US, and that the United States' Middle East policy is being held hostage by pro-Israel lobbyists who have painted an enemy image of the dreaded IRGC that is neither accurate nor in tune with the history of US-IRGC interaction.
The US and the IRGC
The current noise masks a hidden history of cooperation between the US military and the IRGC - in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan and, more and more likely, Iraq.
In Bosnia, the US military and intelligence interacted with the IRGC, which had trained Bosnian Muslims, and fought alongside it against their Serbian enemies. They also funneled arms to the IRGC, mainly through Croatia, with the tacit consent of the US government.
In Afghanistan, US military commanders have had similar interaction with commanders of the IRGC, including the elite Quds division of the IRGC, which supported anti-Taliban forces and helped those forces take over Kabul in 2001 with relative ease.
In Iraq, the IRGC has supported various Shi'ite militias as well as the Iraqi military and intelligence and, unofficially, it can credit for the relative stability of the eight Shi'ite provinces, including those in the south. The new US diplomatic engagement of Iran over Iraq is having direct and immediate effects on Iran's behavior inside Iraq, promising further results by the joint expert committees set up as a result of the latest round in the dialogue.
Yet true to the United States' traditional Janus-faced approach toward Iran, just as Iranian and US military and intelligence officials are about to embark on systematic discussions over Iraq and regional security, they will in effect be prevented from doing so by the labeling of the IRGC as terrorist.
Coming 'war of attrition'?
The idea of an all-out military confrontation between the US and Iran, triggered by a US attack on the IRGC, has its watered-down version in a "war of attrition" whereby instead of inter-state warfare, we would witness medium-to-low-intensity clashes.
The question, then, is whether or not the US superpower, addicted to its military doctrine of "superior and overwhelming response", will tolerate occasional bruises at the hands of the Iranians. The answer is highly unlikely given the myriad prestige issues involved and, in turn, this raises the advisability of the labeling initiative with such huge implications nested in it.
No matter, the stage is now set for direct physical clashes between Iran and the US, which has blamed the death of hundreds of its soldiers on Iranian-made roadside bombs. One plausible scenario is the United States' "hot pursuit" of the IRGC inside Iranian territory, initially through "hit and run" commando operations, soliciting an Iranian response, direct or indirect, potentially spiraling out of control.
The hallucination of a protracted "small warfare with Iran" that would somehow insulate both sides from an unwanted big "clash of titans" is just that, a fantasy born and bred in the minds of war-obsessed hawks in Washington and Israel.
Note
1. The Algiers Accords of January 19, 1981, were brokered by the Algerian government between the US and Iran to resolve the situation that arose from the capture of American citizens in the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Through this accord the US citizens were set free. Among its provisions it was stated that the US would not intervene in Iranian internal affairs. - Wikipedia
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH18Ak04.html
Clarín: Una tecnología de los años cincuenta,
a la vanguardia de las comunicaciones inalámbricas
19.08.2007 | Clarin.com
Se trata del sistema Ultra Wide Band (UWB) que ofrece una mayor capacidad de transmisión. Posee un ancho de banda que supera al conocido Wi Fi y además permite transportar en simultáneo audio, video y todo tipo de datos. Los primeros dispositivos "Wimedia" empezarán a comercializarse en 2008.
Inventado en los años cincuenta y desarrollado para actividades militares, el UWB se aggiornó y ya está listo para destronar a los conocidos Wi Fi, Bluetooth e incluso al USB tal como lo conocemos. Los avances de las comunicaciones móviles le permitieron a este "nuevo" sistema desarrollar sus funciones y poder avanzar hacia la unificación de los canales inalámbricos de transmisión de datos.
Las características de versatilidad y potencia del UWB harán que esta tecnología termine con los cables utilizados en dispositivos multimedia como los reproductores de MP4, las cámaras de fotos y de video. Para el especialista en tecnologías, Eric Bangeman, "el sistema Wirless USB ofrecerá todos los beneficios que actualmente ofrece el USB 2.0, pero sin cables".
El Wimedia, como también se lo conoce, ya cuenta con la aprobación de IEEE de USA (Instituto de Ingenieros de Electricidad y Electrónica, por su denominación en inglés) y con la certificación de normas ISO. Esto permitirá su estandarización y facilitará la interconexión de equipos cualquiera sea su modelo y marca. Además se les dará el impulso necesario a los fabricantes para que comiencen a producir sus equipos con esta nueva tecnología.
En Estados Unidos, el grupo industrial Multiband OFDM Alliance, formado por más de cincuenta empresas del sector, entre las que se incluye Samsung, Matsushita Electric y Nokia ya se encuentran trabajando en la aplicación del sistema en sus dispositivos. De hecho, para 2008 se prevé el lanzamiento del primer dispositivo que contará con el Ultrawideband.
Mientras que Bluetooth, WiFi, teléfonos inalámbricos y demás dispositivos de radiofrecuencia están limitadas a frecuencias sin licencia en los 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz y 5.1 GHz, UWB hace uso de un espectro de frecuencia recientemente legalizado. Esto permitirá que a través de una frecuencia universal, cualquier equipo configurado en forma adecuada pueda enviar y recibir datos en cualquier parte del mundo.
Copyright 1996-2007 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2007/08/19/um/m-01481444.htm
Guardian:
Hurricane Dean approaches Cayman Islands
Haroon Siddique and agencies
Monday August 20, 2007
Hurricane Dean was today edging closer to the Cayman Islands, where a curfew has been imposed and tourists evacuated in anticipation of its arrival.
The move came after the same steps were taken in Jamaica, which avoided a direct hit when the hurricane passed to its south last night but which has now imposed a state of emergency.
At 5am (1000 BST), Hurricane Dean was around 115 km south of Grand Cayman, travelling at around 20mph.
Earlier, the storm had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, and forecasters said the British territory could be in for up to 12in of rain.
Hurricane Dean, a category four storm which has already killed at least eight people across the Caribbean, was also expected to pass to the south of the Cayman Islands, but the government warned that it still posed a "significant threat".
"We are talking to the hotels to assure that all will be safe and taking precautions if any tourists remain," the Cayman Islands governor, Stuart Jack, told Radio Cayman. "I am confident that we are in the best possible position to face this storm."
The Cayman Islands was devastated by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. As a result, many homes and businesses have been rebuilt to withstand strong storms.
No deaths were reported in Jamaica, but the hurricane uprooted trees, flooded streets and tore the roofs off many homes. Reuters reported that at least one man was missing after trees fell on to his house.
The Jamaican prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, declared a month-long state of emergency and called a cabinet meeting to discuss the potential impact on Jamaican general elections, scheduled for August 27.
More than 125,000 people were without power after authorities cut electricity on the island to prevent damage to its network.
Police said they shot and wounded two men caught trying to break into a business in the capital, Kingston, during the storm.
Local media said 17 fishermen and women had been stranded on the Pedro Cays, a small island chain directly in the path of the hurricane.
The US National Hurricane Centre, based in Miami, said the storm could reach the highest level, category five - with maximum winds greater than 155 mph - as it headed for Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, including the tourist resort of Cancun, later today.
Holidaymakers have been streaming out of resorts in the Yucatan, with long queues building up at the airport, while locals have been stocking up on supplies.
Twelve empty planes arrived on Sunday to move tourists out, the airport's spokesman, Eduardo Rivadeneira, said. The state government has set up 530 shelters, which can accommodate a total of 73,000 people.
Officials in Texas, which is still drying out from a tropical storm that killed one person, have also begun preparations in case Hurricane Dean is heading their way.
Emergency operations centres have been opened, sandbags placed along part of the coastline and prisoners moved to jails deeper inland.
The US space shuttle Endeavour was travelling back to earth from the International Space Station so it could land a day early in case the storm forced NASA to evacuate its Houston centre.
A hurricane warning is also in effect on the coast of Belize.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weather/Story/0,,2152519,00.html
Jeune Afrique: A l'occasion de la fête nationale,
Sassou commue les peines de mort
CONGO (BRAZZA) - 19 août 2007 - par AFP
Le chef de l'Etat congolais Denis Sassou Nguesso a prononcé par décret, à l'occasion de la fête nationale du 15 août, une série de grâces collectives, commuant notamment toutes les condamnations à mort en travaux forcés à perpétuité, selon un décret obtenu dimanche par l'AFP.
Selon le décret daté de vendredi, les peines de mort prononcées antérieurement au 15 août sont commuées en travaux forcés à perpétuité et les peines à perpétuité commuées en peines de 30 ans de réclusion criminelle.
Dix-sept condamnés à mort sont concernés par cette mesure.
"Une remise gracieuse de peine de dix ans est accordée à toute personne condamnée à une peine criminelle allant de 21 ans à 30 ans. Une remise gracieuse de la moitié de la peine est accordée à toute personne condamnée à une peine criminelle allant de dix à 20 ans", indique également le décret.
Les détenus, condamnés à entre un et 19 ans de prison et ayant effectué la moitié de leur peine sont graciés pour le reste de leur peine, prévoit aussi notamment le texte.
Le directeur exécutif de l'Observatoire congolais des droits de l'homme (OCDH), Roger Bouka Owoko, s'est "félicité" de la décision présidentielle de commuer les peines de mort, mais a appelé le président à déposer une loi en vue de l'abolition de la peine capitale.
La peine capitale existe toujours dans le droit pénal congolais, mais aucun condamné à mort n'a été exécuté au Congo depuis 1982, selon Amnesty International.
L'OCDH a également dénoncé "les effectifs pléthoriques" des maisons d'arrêt de Brazzaville et Pointe-Noire (sud-ouest), la capitale économique, déplorant qu'elles ne disposent pas de budget de fonctionnement et rappelant que "les personnes en détention préventive (étaient) plus nombreuses que celles qui sont condamnées, du fait de la lourdeur des procédures judiciaires".
"Il ne s’agit pas seulement de prendre des décrets, il faut aussi améliorer les conditions de détention qui sont très médiocres. A la maison d’arrêt de Brazzaville, il y a des personnes détenues depuis 2 ans sans jugement. Cela relève de l’arbitraire", a dénoncé de son côté le président de l’Association des droits de l’homme pour l’univers carcéral (Adhuc), Loamba Moké.
Ex-colonie française, le Congo a célébré mercredi le 47e anniversaire de son indépendance.
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_
depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP11857alocctromed0#
La Repubblica:
Nigeria, coprifuoco a Port Harcourt
Per più di una settimana paralizzata dagli scontri
la città del petrolio, dove sono stati rapiti molti tecnici
di VINCENZO NIGRO
20 agosto 2007
L'ULTIMA BATTAGLIA di Port Harcourt è stata furiosa. Per più di una settimana i blindati e gli elicotteri hanno combattuto nelle strade della capitale del petrolio nigeriano. Alla fine esercito e polizia hanno imposto il coprifuoco dalle 6 si sera alle 6 del mattino, ma soprattutto sostengono di aver ucciso Soboma George, il capo di una banda criminale associata al Mend, il Movimento per l'emancipazione del Niger-Delta.
Il Mend è il cartello che da più di un anno ha iniziato a sequestrare tecnici stranieri del settore petrolifero (tra cui molti italiani) per chiedere i riscatti che servono a finanziare le varie bande del movimento, ma soprattutto per fare pressioni sul governo federale nigeriano. Da quando il governo di Abuja ha liberato Mujahid Dokubo Asari, il capo dell'ala politica del Mend, il movimento si è spaccato: Asari è stato investito dal governo di un ruolo di negoziatore, per riportare l'ordine nella regione del Delta e provare a negoziare le richieste politiche che i capi del movimento fanno al governo federale (sostanzialmente una fetta maggiore degli introiti del petrolio a favore delle 6 regioni del Delta del Niger, quelle in cui il petrolio viene estratto). Dalla sua parte ci sarebbero i gruppi più "politici" che fanno parte della costellazione del Mend.
Dall'altra parte ci sono i gruppi più vicini alla criminalità, che si agitano per provare a ricavare il massimo profitto possibile in questo confronto con il nuovo presidente nigeriano Yar'Adua. Il gruppo guidato dal misterioso "Master" continua a lanciare segnali di guerra, e secondo osservatori internazionali in Nigeria starebbe tornando ad occuparsi del suo business principale, il traffico di armi.
Contemporaneamente le bande più pericolose, quello meno strutturate politicamente e quindi più vicine alla delinquenza pura, si stanno scontrando fra di loro. E' il caso dei gruppi di Soboma Gorge e Tom Ateke, che nei giorni scorsi si erano affrontati nelle strade di Port Harcourt trasformandole in un campo di battaglia. E' la stato lo scontro fra questi due gruppi a far decidete alla "JTF" del governo nigeriano di intervenire in modo massiccio. La "Joint Task Force" ha messo insieme polizia federale, polizia mobile, esercito, Navy e aeronautica nigeriane, tutte sotto un unico coordinamento per provare a riprendere il controllo di Port Harcourt e difendere il lavoro dei tecnici petroliferi internazionali.
Lo scontro fra i due gruppi collegati al Mend era iniziato il 5 agosto; solo dopo 6 giorni la Navy nigeriana (che ha un corpo scelto di marines con cui pattuglia i canali del Delta) è entrata in forze in città e ha iniziato a combattere assieme a polizia ed esercito. Soboma George sarebbe stato ucciso in un attacco all'albergo che era diventato il suo quartier generale. Jomo Gbomo, il portavoce del Mend, ha smentito che Soboma sia stato ucciso, annunciando che la lotta continuerà. In gennaio Soboma era già stato arrestato, ma poche ore più tardi un esercito di suoi uomini aveva dato l'assalto con armi pesanti alla stazione di polizia in cui era detenuto, abbattendo a cannonate i muri di cinta e i cancelli per liberarlo.
Vedremo nelle prossime ore quale sarà la verità su George e sul suo rivale Tom Ateke, e soprattutto vedremo come il governo continuerà ad impegnare gli uomini dell'esercito mentre ha avviato un negoziato con l'ala politica del Mend. Per il momento le strade di Port Harcourt sono ancora assai insicure, anche se la svolta politica decisa dal nuovo presidente Yar'Adua potrebbe aver impresso in ogni caso una svolta capace di cambiare le condizioni di sicurezza e il rapporto tra le comunità del delta Niger e il governo federale.
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/08/sezioni/esteri/situazione-nigeria/
situazione-nigeria/situazione-nigeria.html
New Statesman:
The most important protest of our time
Mark Lynas
Published 16 August 2007
Aviation is the incendiary issue in environmental politics today. The campaigners at Heathrow are just the vanguard of a powerful new people's movement.
It's difficult to hear over the roar of planes - Heathrow is literally on the other side of the fence. In an hour or so a phalanx of black-clad policemen will invade the site, only to be driven away by a hurriedly assembled group of chanting protesters. But for now our minds are focused on global warming science. Using a solar-charged laptop and slides projected against the wind-buffeted side of a white marquee, I'm explaining to a packed audience of Climate Campers just how important it is that we stabilise global temperature rises below the danger line of 2° - and how the aviation industry stands in the way.
Probably the single most polluting thing you or I will ever do is step on to a plane. Take that tempting return flight to, say, Thailand, and you become immediately responsible for about six tonnes of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere - three times more than is likely to come from any other activity you do in the year, including driving and heating your house. This is why aviation is the most bitter and divisive issue in environmental politics today.
There is almost no consensus anywhere in this debate. Even my last paragraph will have caused annoyance for some: my six tonnes figure for the Thailand flight includes a 2.7x multiplier to account for the aggravating impact of greenhouse gases released by aircraft high into the atmosphere. However, citing scientific uncertainty, airlines choose to ignore this extra warming effect: if you use British Airways's carbon calculator to reassess my Thailand flight, it returns a figure of "only" 2.16 tonnes.
Not surprisingly, the industry downplays the impact of its activities. BAA's chief executive, Stephen Nelson, argues that aviation accounts for only 6 per cent of UK carbon emissions and 3 per cent of those globally. (These figures of course include no multiplier.) Aviation "should not be demonised, and we should not be cutting back on capacity at a time when people want to fly more", he insists. However, Nelson and his colleagues are less happy to voice a more inconvenient truth concerning aviation: that it is by far the fastest-growing source of greenhouse-gas emissions globally. This is the second reason why the aviation debate is so bitter, and why protesters are massing around the perimeter fence at Heathrow. If air travel goes on expanding, all carbon-reduction targets go out of the window. As the Tyndall Centre - the UK's best-known academic body specialising in climate research - reported in a 2006 study, aviation could account for 100 per cent of the UK's carbon allocation by 2050 in a climate stabilisation scenario. In other words, all other carbon-emitting sectors will need either to go zero-carbon or to shut up shop, merely to allow for the growth in air traffic.
Tyndall Centre scientists are adamant that "there is no chance for the climate without tackling aviation" - and that means stopping the expansion of airport infrastructure. This is again where BAA comes in. The company is currently lobbying for a second runway at Stansted and is close to completing Heathrow's Terminal 5. It also wants to see a third runway at Heathrow, and a sixth terminal to serve it, despite promising local residents many times that this would never happen. The company seems to have an umbilical relationship with the Department for Transport - everything it wants to see happen, the DfT wants, too. BAA executives return the compliment by brandishing the 2003 aviation white paper - which "projects" a doubling of passenger numbers by 2020 and supports new runways at Stansted and Heathrow - as a sort of substitute corporate mission statement.
Perhaps this closeness evolves from BAA's origins as a state asset. The British Airports Authority was privatised by Margaret Thatcher in 1986. Since being taken over by the Spanish construction giant Ferrovial in June last year, BAA (which also owns Southampton, Aber deen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports and made £620m in profits last year) is no longer listed on the Stock Exchange and is accountable to no one other than the Ferrovial board.
BAA manages to combine the worst kind of crass commercialism with the hapless inefficiency of a government bureaucracy. Even the Economist complains about the preponderance given at "grotty" Heathrow to aggressive retailing, as opposed to getting people quickly and with minimum fuss on to planes. From an environmentalist perspective, this is all to the good: the more flying becomes an inconvenient and unpleasant experience, the less people will want to do it. There are already signs of this: Stagecoach reports that its 38 per cent rise in profits last year was assisted by domestic air travellers switching to the train due to environmental and convenience concerns.
Most people hope for an eventual technical fix to the emissions problem. Richard Branson has pledged billions for biofuels research, but even if technical hurdles - such as biofuels' propensity to freeze at high altitude - could be overcome, there isn't enough land out there to support the volumes of fuel required without either displacing large areas of food production or further destroying tropical forests. Nor does hydrogen offer much hope; it takes up more space than kerosene for the same amount of energy produced, and the water vapour emissions from burning hydrogen will still warm the climate. No one, not even airline PR people, claims that alternative fuels can be developed for at least another 30-50 years, much too late to help reduce climate change, which requires concerted action in the next decade.
You could offset, of course - but this is another thorny moral and political debate. Certainly it is true that offsetting does not reduce emissions - it simply allows them in one place while trying to mop up the damage somewhere else. However, I would argue that it is better to offset than not, particularly as most of the projects - from biofuel school stoves in India to rainforest restoration in Uganda - are worthy in and of themselves.
Environmentalists suggest that at the very least the aviation industry should pay as much tax on its fuel as everyone else. The Aviation Environment Federation has estimated that airlines pay just 18p per litre on fuel that would cost you and me 75p - helping net the industry as much as £9bn in hidden subsidies. But wouldn't taxing aircraft fuel, thereby raising the price of tickets, simply price poorer travellers out of the market? Not necessarily. Most of the boom in low-cost air travel has been soaked up by rich people travelling more often. Surveys show that most people in the lowest social groups do not fly at all.
A better way to make the industry pay its environmental way would be to bring it into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. In principle, this would force airlines to buy enough credits to cover their activities within the context of an overall economy-wide emissions reduction. But the principle and practice are somewhat different. Governments are allowed to set their own national carbon caps each year. Airlines know their political power, which is probably why most say they are happy to participate in the EU ETS: if the squeeze got too tight, they could simply pick up the phone to the aviation minister.
The industry has grown too powerful for its own good. BAA certainly overplayed its hand in asking for an injunction against climate-change protesters that would potentially have covered five million people. In taking such an arrogant stance, BAA has helped drive together an unusual alliance against it: from local communities, to direct action protesters, to the widening number of ordinary people who recognise the threat aviation poses to our future. It is a movement that is growing rapidly in confidence and in numbers.
Like the police, BAA constantly invokes the terrorism threat as an excuse to stamp out pro test, crying wolf in a political argument it knows it is losing. Campaigners against Stansted expansion recently introduced a witness from Greenland at the public inquiry: Aqqaluk Lynge, an Inuit human rights leader, gave eloquent testimony about what is really at stake. "You may say that the expansion of London Stansted Airport will play only a small part in increasing climate change, but everyone can say that about almost everything they do. It is an excuse for doing nothing," Lynge argued. "The serious consequences affecting my people today will affect your people tomorrow."
As if on cue, scientists revealed on 9 August that the Arctic sea ice had reached its lowest level in recorded history. With a further month of melt left to go, the experts expect that the previous record - set in 2005 - will be "annihilated". Don't expect to read about this in a BAA press release or government white paper. But do expect to hear a lot more about it from campaigners like those at the Climate Camp, who are making the most important protest of our time. The stepping up of direct-action protests on global warming has come not a moment too soon.
Mark Lynas is author of "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" (Fourth Estate, £12.99)
Voices from the climate camp
I have lived in the little borough of Hillingdon all my life. If the expansion goes ahead my whole family history will be under concrete
Linda McCutcheon (61), secretary of the No Third Runway Action Group
If we don’t target airport expansion then all other efforts to confront climate change will be a waste of time
Graham Thompson (33), Plane Stupid activist
I’ve been encouraging as many people as possible to go to the Camp for Climate Action: it’s an opportunity to learn about what’s at stake. The airport expansion would ruin the lives of local people
Michael Cox (49), Liberal Democrat councillor for the London Borough of Hillingdon
I’m involved with climate change through my work, but I’ve also seen the injustice in the way people in Heathrow’s flight path have been treated
Peter Lockley (27), running workshops for the Aviation Environment Federation
Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. If we want to be a world leader in tackling it, we have to start at home
James Turner (27), full-time Greenpeace activist
Interviews by Ben Quinn
http://www.newstatesman.com/200708160010
Like the police, BAA constantly invokes the terrorism threat as an excuse to stamp out pro test, crying wolf in a political argument it knows it is losing. Campaigners against Stansted expansion recently introduced a witness from Greenland at the public inquiry: Aqqaluk Lynge, an Inuit human rights leader, gave eloquent testimony about what is really at stake. "You may say that the expansion of London Stansted Airport will play only a small part in increasing climate change, but everyone can say that about almost everything they do. It is an excuse for doing nothing," Lynge argued. "The serious consequences affecting my people today will affect your people tomorrow."
As if on cue, scientists revealed on 9 August that the Arctic sea ice had reached its lowest level in recorded history. With a further month of melt left to go, the experts expect that the previous record - set in 2005 - will be "annihilated". Don't expect to read about this in a BAA press release or government white paper. But do expect to hear a lot more about it from campaigners like those at the Climate Camp, who are making the most important protest of our time. The stepping up of direct-action protests on global warming has come not a moment too soon.
Mark Lynas is author of "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet" (Fourth Estate, £12.99)
Voices from the climate camp
I have lived in the little borough of Hillingdon all my life. If the expansion goes ahead my whole family history will be under concrete
Linda McCutcheon (61), secretary of the No Third Runway Action Group
If we don’t target airport expansion then all other efforts to confront climate change will be a waste of time
Graham Thompson (33), Plane Stupid activist
I’ve been encouraging as many people as possible to go to the Camp for Climate Action: it’s an opportunity to learn about what’s at stake. The airport expansion would ruin the lives of local people
Michael Cox (49), Liberal Democrat councillor for the London Borough of Hillingdon
I’m involved with climate change through my work, but I’ve also seen the injustice in the way people in Heathrow’s flight path have been treated
Peter Lockley (27), running workshops for the Aviation Environment Federation
Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced. If we want to be a world leader in tackling it, we have to start at home
James Turner (27), full-time Greenpeace activist
Interviews by Ben Quinn
http://www.newstatesman.com/200708160010
Página/12:
“Nos vamos a llenar de enfermos en estado vegetativo”
CARLOS GHERARDI, UNO DE LOS MAYORES EXPERTOS EN BIOETICA EN EL PAIS
Durante 30 años, Gherardi fue jefe de Terapia Intensiva del Hospital de Clínicas. Allí, el cotidiano límite entre la vida y la muerte lo convenció de que morir dignamente “es la verdadera cultura de la vida”. Acaba de publicar Vida y muerte en Terapia Intensiva. En esta entrevista, pone en debate los conflictos éticos vinculados con el progreso científico y tecnológico.
Por Mariana Carbajal
Lunes, 20 de Agosto de 2007
–¿Por qué decidió escribir el libro?
–En los medios, diariamente se habla de la clonación y de la biología molecular. Pero hace más de treinta años que se sacan y se ponen respiradores artificiales en terapia intensiva y nadie habla de eso. A los médicos no les gusta hablar de lo que sucede en ese ámbito. Y digo respirador como paradigma del soporte vital. La tecnología está presente en distintos campos de la medicina, pero la terapia intensiva es el único donde está aplicada siempre en forma continua y terapéutica.
–¿Qué tiene que saber la sociedad?
–La sociedad debe hablar y conocer las relaciones entre la muerte y el soporte vital, que es el eje por donde pasa la terapia intensiva. He visto nacer estos servicios, en los años setenta, para rescatar la vida y ahora cuando hablamos de terapia intensiva hablamos de la muerte: se han convertido en la antesala de la muerte en lugar de ser la antesala de la recuperabilidad. Esto es una paradoja inexplicable. Hoy en la terapia intensiva se muere un 20 por ciento de los pacientes. Antes de la creación de estos servicios, el 80 por ciento restante no vivía; algunos ni siquiera existían como pacientes porque no eran sometidos a muchos tratamientos y operaciones que hoy pueden hacerse porque la seguridad tecnológica que les da la terapia intensiva les permite sobrevivir. Las intervenciones tremendas de corazón o en la cabeza, los trasplantes de órganos se pueden hacer porque el paciente está en condiciones de seguridad. El soporte vital se aplica, pero no es para toda la vida. Todo lo que un médico está dispuesto a aplicar, también tiene que estar dispuesto a retirarlo en algún momento o a no aplicarlo porque no corresponde. En terapia intensiva esto significa la proximidad de la muerte. Es lo que yo llamo muerte intervenida. Para un médico es más difícil hablar del tema con la familia del paciente si no está al tanto de estas cosas antes del momento crítico. Pensando además en el futuro, es imprescindible que la sociedad internalice este conocimiento porque cada vez va a haber más posibilidad de que estas cosas ocurran.
–Hoy la muerte natural parece reducida a la muerte por accidente o a la que se espera en la intimidad de la casa, de la mano de la llamada medicina paliativa ...
–La muerte ha sido expulsada de la casa, no tanto por motivos filosóficos, sino por cómo está compuesta la sociedad: casi hay más población de más de cincuenta años que de menos de esa edad. Son pocos los que están en la casa, son muchos los que trabajan, y los hijos de los ancianos que están enfermos ya también son grandes y también tienen sus enfermedades. Es difícil morirse en la casa sin ayuda. Entonces, aparece el geriátrico. La muerte también es expulsada de las salas de los sanatorios: hay una tendencia a que el enfermo cuando se va a morir pase a terapia intensiva.
–¿Hay un encarnizamiento terapéutico por temor a los juicios por mala praxis?
–La medicina defensiva existe. Yo viví la época en que un enfermo decía “yo tengo un amigo médico” o “mi papá es médico” y ahora uno escucha que a veces dicen: “ojo que tengo a mi cuñado abogado”... si siente una presión. Yo no voy a justificar la medicina defensiva, pero tengo la obligación de explicarla.
–¿En qué consiste?
–Es la que se preocupa más por el bienestar del médico que por el del paciente. Muchos médicos tienen miedo de que se les cuestione por qué sacaron un respirador, por qué no lo pusieron, por qué no mandaron al paciente a terapia intensiva. Muchos médicos mandan enfermos a terapia intensiva cuando son irrecuperables. Eso es una crueldad.
–¿Hay un negocio asociado al encarnizamiento tecnológico?
–Yo no lo veo desde ese punto de vista. El lucro existe en la sofisticación de la tecnología como existe en la producción de medicamentos. Pero hay que reconocer que gracias a ellos, pero no necesariamente a los sistemas de salud, el promedio de vida aumentó 30 años desde el siglo XX en las poblaciones que tienen acceso a usufructuar el derecho a la salud. Hoy no creo que lleven a los pacientes a terapia intensiva para facturar más. Cuando un enfermo entra a terapia intensiva y no se lo saca, se pone en juego un imperativo tecnológico: “porque se puede, se debe”. Contra eso hay que luchar. Ante un paciente grave, siempre hay algo para hacer. En realidad, lo que hay para hacer cuando alguien se está por morir es ayudarlo a morir, ayudarlo a permitir que se muera.
–¿Es difícil encontrar el límite entre lo que se puede y lo que se debe hacer en la terapia intensiva, con un paciente moribundo?
–El límite hay que establecerlo médicamente pero también éticamente. Y ahí, el límite entre lo médico y lo ético se hace cada vez más borroso. La familia del paciente tiene que saber cuándo hay que ir abandonando la tecnología y cuándo al enfermo hay que ir sacándolo de terapia intensiva o no poniéndolo en ese ámbito.
–¿Cómo se puede cambiar este paradigma?
–Hay que cambiarlo con una bioética del fin de la vida que tenga en cuenta lo que ya no es cantidad de vida sino calidad de vida. Se vive más, pero ¿se vive mejor? ¿Está bien hacerle de todo a un paciente aunque viva unos meses más? ¿Viven mejor con capacidades cognoscitivas disminuidas, con capacidades de autovalidez casi imposibles? Yo creo que cuando uno llega a no tener calidad de vida es el momento de la diversidad, en el cual uno puede elegir. A veces uno no está en condiciones de elegir –cuando está inconsciente–, ése es el problema. Y rescato en esos casos el papel fundamental de la familia. Si existen directivas anticipadas del paciente hay que respetarlas a rajatabla, pero no debemos olvidarnos que en el país que más las impulsó –porque es un invento norteamericano–- fracasaron. Hoy en Estados Unidos, del total de personas que mueren en terapia intensiva menos de un diez por ciento han dejado una directiva anticipada de cómo morir, porque esa voluntad la expresa quien es portador de una enfermedad crónica. Ahora se quiere judicializar la directiva anticipada, pero lo importante, el valor moral que tiene es que la sepa su familia, que es la persona que está permanentemente en la puerta de la habitación o de la terapia intensiva preguntando como está todos los días el paciente, que conoce los valores, las creencias, las cosas por las que el paciente luchó: es a esa persona a quien el médico tiene que escuchar. Pero me parece que éste es un momento difícil porque está roto ese vínculo entre el paciente y el grupo familiar y la medicina. El médico pasó a ser el eslabón de un sistema de salud que hoy es una telaraña burocrática que de pronto se torna insoportable.
–¿Qué opina de la ley que se aprobó recientemente en Río Negro y que ahora debe pasar por una segunda vuelta legislativa?
–Esa ley estimula la judicialización, porque la directiva anticipada se debe decir ante un escribano. Además, es una ley con pocas precisiones, que aumenta la confusión porque no dice claramente qué se hace con el enfermo inconsciente. Esa directiva anticipada existe en el paciente enfermo, no en el sano. Los problemas de las inconsciencias y los estados vegetativos ocurren en jóvenes o no tan jóvenes sanos pero que han tenido un accidente.
–Usted destaca en el libro que en realidad la definición de muerte cerebral fue la primera respuesta que la medicina dio hacia la sofisticación del tratamiento. ¿Cómo se llegó a esa decisión?
–El Comité de Harvard que lo decidió, en 1968, trabajó urgido por el acelerado desarrollo de la trasplantología y a pedido expreso de eminentes médicos del Massachusetts General Hospital. Luego de un breve tiempo de análisis emitió un informe que se publica en una de las revistas de medicina de mayor prestigio, editada por la Asociación Médica Norteamericana, el JAMA, en el que aconseja una nueva definición de muerte basada en la irreversibilidad del daño cerebral producido en ciertos pacientes en coma. El comité declaró dos fundamentos centrales: en primer lugar, la carga que estos pacientes significan para ellos mismos o para otros como su familia, hospitales, falta de camas para pacientes recuperables; y en segundo lugar, la controversia médica existente sobre el momento en que era razonable efectuar la ablación de órganos para trasplantes. Lo que hizo este comité fue cambiar el órgano que presidía la muerte: el cerebro en lugar del corazón. No fue un descubrimiento científico. Es importante que la gente sepa que es una convención y que la muerte cerebral ya es una muerte intervenida. El comité –integrado por diez médicos con la asistencia de un abogado, un historiador y un teólogo–- decidió que a esos pacientes que están en esas condiciones hay que sacarles el respirador, pero –dijeron– tenemos que sacar una ley que diga que la muerte ocurrió antes y no después del retiro. Es un eufemismo jurídico: la muerte ocurre porque se saca el respirador. Y cada vez va a tener que ser más intervenida porque cada vez son más exitosas las reanimaciones, las resucitaciones y nos vamos a llenar de enfermos en estado vegetativo, de enfermos que tienen tantas comorbilidades que no pueden movilizarse, pero respiran y les funciona el corazón. Nadie es capaz de enterrar a una persona en estado vegetativo, pero finalmente en ese estado la persona perdió las condiciones que diferencian a un organismo vivo de una persona, que son la afectividad, la comunicación, la actitud cognoscitiva. Yo creo en esa clasificación que se ha hecho entre organismo, individuo y persona. Quien ya no sabe más dónde está, quién es, comunicarse y expresar sus anhelos y exhibir sus emociones –lo que nos separa de ser un animal– ya no es una persona, aunque lata el corazón y pueda respirar.
–¿Usted sacaría la hidratación y la alimentación a un paciente cuyo corazón late?
–Si lo tuviera que decidir para mí, digo que sí, que lo hagan. Tuve que opinar en un caso que llegó a la Suprema Corte de la provincia de Buenos Aires y trascendió en los medios, el de una mujer que quedó en estado vegetativo hace ocho años, luego de dar a luz. El marido quería desconectarla, pero los padres de la mujer se opusieron y la Corte respaldó su posición. Yo, como médico, seguí la opinión de la familia. El que moralmente tiene que tenerse en cuenta en ese caso es el marido, que es el que está con la paciente (en otros casos puede ser otra persona). Yo respetaría tanto al que quiere brindar toda la vida que le queda para cuidar a un familiar en estado vegetativo –en una actitud que me parece supererogatoria moralmente–, como al que toma la decisión de pararle la alimentación y la hidratación, para permitir morir a esa persona. En ambos casos el familiar se queda con un sufrimiento que no va a poder sublimar nunca, pero cada uno tiene derecho a elegir.
–¿En qué sentido debería legislarse sobre el tema?
–Los médicos deberían estar cubiertos legalmente frente a la muerte intervenida. Hoy si alguien nos demanda por sacar el respirador o dejar de suministrar drogas para permitir que se le pare el corazón y se muera un paciente, la figura prevista en el Código Penal es la de homicidio. Me parece que cuando ética o médicamente y con el consenso familiar se toma esa decisión, debe haber un respaldo legal.
–¿Cuál es la diferencia con la eutanasia?
–Eutanasia es la que se aprobó en Holanda y en Bélgica y tiene cinco características: 1) consiste en provocar la muerte de un paciente; 2) a pedido del paciente –más allá de estar o no de acuerdo con este procedimiento, moralmente es una diferencia central–; 3) cuando el paciente tenga una enfermedad incurable o un sufrimiento insoportable a juicio del paciente, 4) que sea en propio beneficio del paciente de acuerdo a su criterio –y esto se aclara para diferenciarlo de lo que fue el genocidio nazi– y 5) que se efectúe por la administración de una droga o un tóxico en dosis mortales. No hay que confundir los términos. El juez de la Corte bonaerense (Francisco) Roncoroni dijo en el fallo que le negó el retiro de la alimentación y la hidratación a la mujer en cuyo caso intervine que permitirlo significaría convalidar prácticas como la del genocidio nazi o como la de la roca Tarpeya de Roma. Si un juez llegó a escribir esta barbaridad en una sentencia se hace muy difícil avanzar en el debate.
–¿Bélgica y Holanda son los únicos países donde está permitida la eutanasia?
–Sí. El Estado de Oregon, en Estados Unidos, lo que tiene permitido es el suicidio asistido, que no es lo mismo. En ese caso, el médico le prescribe al paciente una droga, que generalmente es un psicofármaco, y el paciente se la guarda y cuando lo decide, se la toma.
–¿Lo que pedía el español Ramón Sampedro?
–Exacto. Tiene que ver con el derecho a vivir y el derecho a morir. Finalmente, como decía el filósofo Hans Jonas, el morir es ausencia de vida. Vivimos sin pedir permiso. Sampedro decía que vivir no tiene que ser una obligación sino un derecho. Y realmente, ahora, con la incorporación del soporte vital, genera una discusión alrededor de la muerte que es totalmente distinta de lo que era antes de los años setenta.
–¿Cuál es el porcentaje de pacientes que mueren en terapia intensiva por el retiro del soporte vital?
–En la Argentina hay una sola estadística. Es la que hicimos a partir de una investigación prospectiva de las muertes en terapia intensiva en el Hospital de Clínicas. Sobre 500 casos –a lo largo de tres años– el médico de guardia dice qué influencia pudo haber tenido el retiro del soporte vital en cada muerte. En un 45 por ciento hubo límites en la atención (de pronto dijimos acá no vamos a hacer tal cosa). De ese 45 por ciento, un 25 por ciento fueron casos en los que no se reanimó a pacientes que tuvieron un paro cardíaco en terapia, a un 7 por ciento se le retiró algo y a un 10 por ciento no se le puso algo. Si nos comparamos con lo que sucede en países de Europa Central como Francia, España, Italia, vemos que “retiramos” en mucha menor medida que ellos. Los bioeticistas dicen que moralmente es lo mismo sacar un respirador que no ponerlo. Moralmente será lo mismo pero la sensación fáctica no es igual. Se observa que cuando más libertario es un país, mayor es el porcentaje de retiro de soporte vital. Si uno no se anima a retirar, a lo mejor a veces no le ofrece todo lo que tiene que ofrecer a un paciente. Si uno moralmente se siente mejor cuando no lo pone, puede ocurrir que algún paciente sea privado de un recurso o que cuando se lo puso, no se anime a sacarlo: eso es encarnizamiento terapéutico, le dejo todo puesto hasta que las complicaciones de las complicaciones finalmente lo matan.
–El papa Juan Pablo II se refirió al tema en una de sus encíclicas, Evangelium Vital, de 1995. ¿Qué aportó al debate?
–Confusión. Porque dice que la eutanasia es todo hecho que por acción u omisión facilita la muerte de un paciente sufriente y en esa clasificación entraría el retiro de soporte vital. Pero fíjese, sin embargo, que Juan Pablo II eligió la muerte digna: fue un Papa que se internó una decena de veces, cada vez podía caminar peor, se le entendía menos lo que hablaba, tenía un Parkinson grave, hasta que la última vez tuvo una complicación –-no por el Parkinson– por una infección urinaria, con mucha fiebre, e hizo un cuadro de sepsis, y decidió que se quedaba en su cama. Esa infección podría haberse tratado en terapia intensiva y seguramente con éxito. Pero él eligió quedarse en su cama y murió ahí. Esa es la verdadera cultura de la vida. Porque a propósito de la encíclica Evangelium Vital, cuando se habla de la eutanasia se habla de una cultura actual de la muerte y se incluye también el genocidio, el aborto y la planificación familiar. Permitir morir en condiciones dignas es la verdadera cultura de la vida. Cultura de la muerte es la guerra.
–¿Tuvo algún paciente en estado vegetativo que luego se recuperó?
–No. Ahora en el mundo han aparecido casos de pacientes que tienen un grado de conciencia mínima, son personas que tienen algunos islotes de capacidad cognitiva. Hubo un caso, hace algunos años, de un joven que se llamaba Terry Wallis, en Estados Unidos, que estuvo en estado semiinconsciente durante casi dos décadas después de un accidente y un día soprendentemente dijo “mamá” y hasta pidió “Coke”. Este caso, que tuvo gran repercusión mundial en 2003, se presentó como demostración de que un paciente en estado vegetativo se puede recuperar. Sin embargo, estudiado posteriormente se comprobó que tenía un estado de conciencia mínima y que esta recuperación espontánea de algunas funciones como el habla, mínima por cierto pero existente, podía deberse a la regeneración de algunas vías nerviosas axonales (no neuronales). Estos aislados casos que no son estados vegetativos y que se anuncian como milagrosas recuperaciones han prestado sustento, por ejemplo a la Iglesia Católica, para combatir la posibilidad cierta, lógica y razonable de plantear el cese de la hidratación y de la alimentación en los casos verdaderos de estados vegetativos y así permitirles morir, como a Terri Schiavo.
–¿Se practica eutanasia en el país?
–¿Activa? No lo he verificado. Hice una vez una encuesta entre médicos en la que pregunté si alguien la había pedido: menos de un dígito dijo que sí.
–¿Cómo se vive el momento de quitar un respirador y saber que con esa acción se va a producir la muerte?
–Si uno está convencido de que lo que va a hacer está bien, tiene una sensación de dignificación, de permitir el buen morir. El no tomar alguna medida de restricción, de muerte intervenida, de no favorecer y permitir la muerte, lo vivo como una situación de crueldad. ¿Qué pasa después con ese paciente al que le hice lo que no tenía que hacerle? ¿Qué pasa cuando yo reanimo a un enfermo al que el corazón se le iba a parar y yo se lo impedí? Puede a lo mejor que quede en estado vegetativo o en un estado de tipo demencial. No solamente no podemos siempre evitar la muerte, sino que a veces no hay que evitarla. El objetivo de la medicina no es evitar la muerte, es prevenir la enfermedad, restaurar la salud, acompañar al dolor y al sufrimiento hasta la cesación de la vida.
© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/dialogos/21-89979-2007-08-20.html
Página/12:
El arte perdido de escribir a mano
Por Robert Fisk *
Lunes, 20 de Agosto de 2007
Mi padre siempre se quejaba de mi mala letra. Su letra de contador, casi de imprenta, era medida, cuidada, llena de pequeños ganchitos que luego noté también había usado, muchos años antes, en el Diario de Guerra del batallón 12 del Real Regimiento de Liverpool, escrito en las trincheras de 1918, cuando él tenía 19. En comparación, mi letra era desprolija y con los años se va poniendo peor. Mis cuadernos de la guerra civil libanesa, con muchos informes garabateados en 1976 y 1977, todavía son legibles. Pero hoy en día vuelvo de una entrevista y me encuentro con horror con que no escribí palabras sino la representación de palabras, entrecortadas con partecitas de taquigrafía Pitman y, por supuesto, le echo la culpa a la computadora. Con un instrumento que puede correr casi a la velocidad de la imaginación, es indignante volver al manuscrito, que simplemente no llega a la velocidad del pensamiento.
Entonces, fue un alivio visitar el otro día el Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits de París y encontrarme con que los grandes y los genios también escribieron con furia y tristeza y, a menudo, con muy mala letra. Me impresionó mucho la letra de Napoleón, una mano militar y obstinada que a veces firmaba “Nap”. Churchill dibujaba chanchitos en las cartas a su mujer. A los grandes artistas les encantaba cubrir sus cartas de dibujitos y Jean Cocteau, notable, solía cubrirlas de caritas asombradas. Mati-sse le escribió en marzo de 1943 a Martin Fabiani con un boceto de una chica leyendo el diario. Gauguin hizo una vez un enorme pomo de pintura al pie de una carta. Esto me recordó una escena terrible que había visto en Hebrón en 2001, cuando una turba de palestinos linchó a tres colaboracionistas y los colgó semidesnudos de postes de alumbrado. Fue una visión tan sucia que la boceteé en mi cuaderno: sólo después pude volver a abrirlo y describir en mi nota en The Independent las imágenes que había dibujado.
Se supone que la letra exhibe el carácter –la mía es atropellada, irregular y apurada–, pero noté que la letra de Catalina de Médici a veces se desdibujaba, despareja, y que la de Robespierre era casi ilegible.
Hay algo dolorosamente humano en eso de leer las cartas de héroes muertos hace tanto... Sus intentos de humor tantas veces fallidos, su tono seudojuvenil raramente resisten bien el paso del tiempo. El 13 de noviembre de 1930, el piloto Shaw –también conocido como Lawrence de Arabia– le escribió al antropólogo norteamericano Henry Field –muerto en 1986– para combinar de encontrarse en Plymouth para hablar de asuntos árabes. Su carta, pude notar, fue escrita con letra simple y escolar, sus íes curvadas en la punta, las letras de cada palabra unidas con prolijidad. “Querido Sr. Field. Espero que sea colosalmente rico, así el costo de venir hasta la miserable Plymouth –el último o el primer pueblo en Inglaterra, dependiendo del hemisferio del que se venga– no le va a pesar demasiado. Yo soy un fraude en todo lo que sea el Medio Oriente y la arqueología. Años atrás me dediqué a ambos y logré un nivel aceptable de conocimiento, pero la guerra me dio una sobredosis y hace nueve años volví confortablemente a las filas de la fuerza aérea, sin que nada fuera de ella me interese desde entonces. Nueve años es tiempo suficiente como para dejarme obsoleto pero, todavía no como para que mis ideas sean arcaicas e interesantes. Además, ya olvidé todo lo que alguna vez supe.”
Pobre Lawrence, siempre tirándose para abajo. Primero pensé que se describía como un amigo del Medio Oriente pero no, realmente no, se definía como un fraude y su carta sigue con el consejo de que Field lo ubique en la estación de Plymouth, entre la multitud. “Busque una criatura pequeña y avejentada en un uniforme verdiazul con botones de bronce, como un empleado del automóvil club o un motorista de tranvía, sólo que más menudo y desprolijo.”
En el museo francés hay ahora una muestra sobre el “Titanic”, que se hundió el día que mi padre cumplía 13 años, un estremecedor telegrama que cuenta la muerte de Thomas Stead, uno de los grandes periodistas de la época. Con la letra compacta y oficial del empleado de correos, expresa que con “sinceras condolencias” queda en claro que “ya no hay ninguna esperanza” de que Stead figure entre los sobrevivientes. “No hay ninguna esperanza”, es siempre algo final, pero ese “ya”, lapidario, debe haber dejado mudos a los destinatarios.
Luego está el relato de náufrago de Helen Churchill Condee, notas de una sobreviviente escritas poco después de la tragedia en párrafos de a rato sorprendentemente breves, como si el barco se estuviera hundiendo de nuevo en su cabeza mientras ella escribía. “Estaba en mi baño lista a tomar un baño caliente. La música de los motores era un golpeteo y una canción, ritmo y armonía. Entonces vino el golpe. La imagen mental fue el momento en que el arca tocó el monte Ararat. El impacto se dio por debajo de mí. Me hizo caer. Habíamos chocado contra una montaña en pleno mar, una montaña no descubierta. Debe ser eso.”
“Abrí la puerta de mi camarote y noté dos o tres cosas siniestras: un silencio absoluto, la luz intensa del salón de baile, la total ausencia de cualquier presencia humana.” En páginas posteriores, la letra de Condee comienza a descontrolarse y ella hace correcciones con su lapicera mientras describe desde el bote salvavidas el final del “Titanic”. “Lo que queda de la cubierta se inclina agudamente a proa y en ese espacio que se achica se amucha la compacta multitud que espera la muerte con el coraje trascendente y la pena que han mostrado ya por dos horas”.
“Espero el final como en trance. Es inevitable. Quiera Dios demorarlo. No, que en Su misericordia lo acelere.”
“Finalmente, el fin del mundo” (en el manuscrito, la f de fin y la m de mundo están subrayadas). “Sobre las aguas queda apenas un gran gemido, como el de un ser al que la agonía final le arrancara un solo sonido.” Hay tachaduras en el texto, palabras cambiadas como haría un compositor buscando el final de una ópera trágica. Condee tenía doce años cuando se hundió el “Titanic”, uno menos que mi padre. Su letra es extrañamente similar, con las mismas curvas y tes decoradas, como si fuera necesario decorar las letras con que se escribe. Supongo que la laptop terminó con todo eso. Ya es raro recibir una carta manuscrita, aunque cada tanto alguien escribe en una vieja y fiel máquina. Ahora, nuestra imaginación vuela a la velocidad de la web. Y es bueno que mi padre no pueda ver la letra que me sale hoy en día...
* De The Independent, de Gran Bretaña. Especial para Página/12.
© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-89976-2007-08-20.html
The Guardian (Nigeria):
Why Niger Delta crisis persists, by Erediauwa, others
From Mike Osunde (Benin) and Kelvin Ebiri (Port Harcourt)
Monday, August 20, 2007
THE lingering crisis in the Niger Delta region yesterday came to the fore as the Benin monarch, Omo N'Oba Erediauwa said the root of the problem centred on the neglect of oil producing communities by multi-national oil firms.
Erediauwa, who spoke in his palace when Vice President Goodluck Jonathan paid him a courtesy call, added that he had sent a memorandum to the presidency in which he identified the cause of the crisis in the region.
Also yesterday, two Niger Delta groups urged the government to punish well-headed politicians who may be sponsoring violence in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The groups, the Niger Delta Civil Society Coalition (NDCSC) and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) urged the government to move against the sponsors of militia groups in Rivers State which have seen bloody cult clashes in the last two weeks.
According to Oba Erediauwa, the root of the Niger Delta crisis is traceable to neglect of the indigenes by multi-nationals involved in oil exploration and exploitation.
He however did not name any particular company but said a good example of the neglect he meant was Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital that was close to the first oil well.
Erediauwa told the visiting Vice President that until Yenagoa became a capital city, it was bereft of modern amenities.
Jonathan was in the Oba's Palace after attending the thanksgiving service to round off the funeral of the late mother of the Edo State Governor, Mrs. Felicia Osunbor, who died on June 30.
With Jonathan on the visit was Rivers State Governor, Celestine Omehia, who on Friday imposed a curfew to curb the cult war in his state capital, Port Harcourt .
The Benin monarch gave no further details of the memorandum. He also did not divulge his solution to the problems of the region but hinted that the memorandum was sent to the immediate past federal administration.
He thanked the Vice President for the visit and for coming to console Governor Osunbor in his hour of grief.
At the thanksgiving service at the Anglican Pro-Cathedral, Iruekpen, yesterday, Omehia donated N10 million towards the completion of the church's Vicarage, a project Osunbor said was dear to the heart of his mother.
NDCSC Chairman, Anyakwe Nsirimovu who spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday, said the Federal Government should be dispassionate and apolitical in treating not just the symptoms but the disease - the politicians.
He said: "Wiping out all the George Sobomas and their followers from the face of the region cannot return peace or normalcy in Rivers State. Dealing equally with the power holders who aid, abet, appease, motivate and, most of all, pay and benefit immensely from their 'good works', together, would."
Nsirimovu noted that for the avoidance of doubt, the current carnage in Rivers State has nothing to do with the struggle for equity and justice in the Niger Delta region. Rather, he described it as a state - ordained and protected criminal racket.
The NDCSC urged the Police to urgently arrest, investigate and prosecute all known cult leaders serving in any capacity in the state. The group urged the President (Umaru Musa Yar' Adua) to note that, while the Sogbomas are known names, "Rivers families, villages, communities and towns, universities, secondary schools, even primary schools are flooded with anthills of recruited cultists
disguised in different fancy names and appellations."
Anyakwe stressed the need to effectively punish and make an open example of the real militants of the region.
NDCSC opposed the imposition of a state of emergency, which would lead to erosion of rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens by over-zealous, adventurous soldiers and police officials. Government, he advise, should explore other more strategic and fruitful security measures.
MEND's spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo on his part, said the current crisis in Port Harcourt was a fight for state patronage.
He accused politicians in the state of employing the services of warring cult groups in the state to ensure their "victory" in the last elections. He said what is happening now is that the politicians are merely working against elements that were not in their support.
On the curfew imposed in Port Harcourt, MEND said it would reduce the loss of innocent civilian lives, adding that, "for now, what is most important is the safety of the citizens of Port Harcourt who have been under a senseless siege for about one week..." It is our hope that the military will be withdrawn promptly as their presence is a nuisance to normal living."
Gbomo said what the government had achieved is a temporary lull in fighting. He noted that the military intervention was unwise and that certainly before long, violence would resurface in Port Harcourt.
"Soboma for instance, has under his control, thousands of fighters and anyone conversant with such groups will know this is an unending war the government has declared. The road to true peace always lies in mutual respect and genuine dialogue," he said.
In his homily at the thanksgiving for Osunbar's mother, the Anglican Bishop of Esan Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Friday Imaekhai, stressed on the need for unity and reconciliation particularly now that the elections were over, saying anyone calling for a rerun of the election did not mean well for the nation.
The bishop said because Nigerians had never given their leaders credit while in government, many were discouraged to take up the mantle of leadership.
He said that in democracy, the electorate surrender their rights once they have voted to elect political leaders.
He said it therefore behoves on the electorate to support and pray for the leaders to succeed.
While praying for all leaders who graced the event the bishop said the leaders should allow those elected to serve the people and not their party members alone.
On Saturday at the funeral mass, President Yar'Adua sent his condolence to the governor as he buried his mother, Felecia.
She was buried next to her husband's grave on the ground of the Anglican Church Pro-Cathedral Iruekpen.
Represented by the Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the letter of condolence read at the funeral mass sign-posted the simple ceremonies of obsequies, which began on Thursday.
Chief Tony Anenih, former chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who attended the funeral service, was to say later that no state funds were used for the burial.
He indicated that it was a burial made possible by the governor's friends and well-wishers as well as the ruling PDP.
Anenih's position was earlier echoed by the Rt. Rev. Imaekhai, who said Osunbor's honest disposition in refusing to use state funds was a sign of good things to come.
He therefore seized the opportunity of the presence of Anenih, Dr. Samuel Osagbovo Ogbemudia, generally referred to as father of the Mid-west State, now Edo and Delta States, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, first Governor of Edo State, and former Military Vice President Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, to appeal to the leaders in their own right to rally round Governor Osunbor to make him succeed.
"We must begin to work to ensure a society that is structurally just to address the common good", he added.
Present at the funeral service were the Governors of Ondo, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, as well as the wife of the VicePresident, Mrs. Patience Johnathan, who was accompanied by the wife of the Senate President, Mrs. David Mark.
President Yar'Adua's letter prayed God to give the Osunbors the fortitude to bear the loss of their mother who died at 73 years.
She is survived by nine children.
© 2003 - 2007 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved).
http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article02
The Independent: Muqtada al-Sadr:
The British are retreating from Basra
By Nizar Latif in Kufa, Iraq and Phil Sands in Damascus
Published: 20 August 2007
The British Army has been defeated in Iraq and left with no option but to retreat from the country, claims radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Violent resistance and a rising death toll among UK troops has forced a withdrawal, he said in an interview with The Independent.
"The British have given-up and they know they will be leaving Iraq soon," Mr Sadr said. "They are retreating because of the resistance they have faced. Without that, they would have stayed for much longer, there is no doubt."
The young nationalist cleric heads Iraq's largest Arab grassroots political movement, and its powerful military wing, the Mehdi army. It has clashed frequently with British forces in southern Iraq, most recently in the battle for power over the oil-rich port city of Basra. Scores of British soldiers have been killed and wounded by Sadrist militants.
"The British have realised this is not a war they should be fighting or one they can win," Mr Sadr said. "The Mehdi army has played an important role in that." He also warned that Britain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq had made the UK a less safe place to live. "The British put their soldiers in a dangerous position by sending them here but they also put the people in their own country in danger," he said. "They have made enemies among all Muslims and they now face attacks at home because of their war. That was their mistake." His comments came during two separate meetings with The Independent at the Sadr movement's headquarters in Kufa, a holy Shia city, 100 miles south of Baghdad, and site of the Grand Mosque where Mr Sadr often preaches fiery Friday sermons. The streets were eerily devoid of cars, which are, in effect, banned in an effort to prevent bombings. Senior Shia leaders are high on the list of targets for Sunni extremists.
Only two guards with AK-47 assault rifles appeared to be protecting Mr Sadr in his office, a clear sign that Kufa and the surrounding area is firmly under the control of Sadr loyalists. It is not patrolled by US troops and access is policed by Iraqi security at heavily armed roadblocks.
Mr Sadr's remarks echo those of senior British military commanders who have come to view the mission of UK forces in Iraq as finished. They have reportedly told the Prime Minister Gordon Brown there is nothing more to be achieved in southern Iraq and that troops should be redeployed to Afghanistan.
At the beginning of the year, Britain had just over 7,000 troops in two provinces of southeastern Iraq. Current force strength is down to 5,500, confined to two main bases, Basra airport and the Basra Palace, which is under siege. Another reduction to 5,000 is expected this summer. Any additional cuts would be part of a complete withdrawal. Defence secretary Des Browne said last week that further reductions had not been decided upon and would only take place in agreement with the Americans.
As the force has dwindled, losses among British troops have accelerated. So far this year, 41 servicemen and women have died, compared to 29 in the whole of 2006. Their area of operations has, in effect, been taken over by three competing militia groups, the Mehdi army, SCIRI and Fadhila, all of which are heavily implicated in oil smuggling, intimidation and death squad activity.
But Basra would be a safer place once the British military presence had ended, Mr Sadr insisted. "There will still be some problems in southern Iraq, there will be violence because some countries are trying to influence the situation," he said in apparent reference to Iran. "But with the occupation of southern Iraq finished we will be freer to live our lives as brothers."
Throughout last week a series of influential Iraqi sheikhs, including at least one senior Sunni tribal leader, visited the Sadrist headquarters as part of an effort to heal the rift between Sunnis and Shias. Aides to Mr Sadr said it was a priority to form a united nationalist front against all "foreign elements" in Iraq, with the Americans and al-Qa'ida to be considered equally as enemies.
Mr Sadr praised Iraqi Sunnis who had begun to fight against al-Qa'ida and religious extremists guilty of targeting Shia civilians. "Proud Iraqis in Ramadi have stood against al-Qa'ida and against the Americans and they have written their names into our history books," he said.
Shrugging off recent rumours that he had fled to Iran - he dismissed them as American propaganda designed to discredit him - Mr Sadr denied US claims his forces were armed by Iran.
"We are at war and America is our enemy so we are entitled to take help from anyone," he said. "But we have not asked for Iran's help." The cleric also said he "welcomed" a recent decision by the UN to expand its role in Iraq. "I would support the UN here in Iraq if it comes and replaces the American and British occupiers," he said.
"If the UN comes here to truly help the Iraqi people, they will receive our help in their work. I would ask my followers to support the UN as long as it is here to help us rebuild our country. They must not just be another face of the American occupation."
The Sadr movement pulled its 32 elected MPs out of Iraq's parliament earlier this year, ending its nominal support for Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.
Other factions have since followed suit, bringing the government to the brink of collapse. Despite recent efforts by the Prime Minister to shore up his power base, his days as Iraq's elected leader were numbered, Mr Sadr said.
"Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people," the cleric said.
"The Prime Minister is a tool for the Americans and people see that clearly. It will probably be the Americans who decide to change him when they realise he has failed. We don't have a democracy here, we have a foreign occupation."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2878776.ece
The Independent:
We admire those who went before us
I do remember as I look through the old boys' list of deaths how they were good men
Robert Fisk
Published: 18 August 2007
Sutton Valence School was an awful, misogynous place. Its one moment of glory was the annual dance with Benenden School (Princess Anne, breathed heavily) but the rest of the year was one of pea soup fogs, humid lakes over the weald and hopes for higher academic advancement.
I laboured for my A-levels under a lunatic headmaster who insisted that we spent more time on our Latin grammar (especially Livy), as he also insisted on our pernicious study of Gilbert and Sullivan. Initially, I was his prize performer on the percussion in Iolanthe. Later, I learned - viciously - to destroy The Pirates of Penzance on the violin.
But one thing I did learn from Sutton Valence: the dawning of early morning over the Weald of Kent. Even in Beirut, where I now walk out to that beautiful dawn which only the Mediterranean can give us, do I understand this.
I dispute - and hate - much of what my old school used to tell me - but each year flops on to my desk, in my mail bag from London, my annual copy of the Suttonian. It shows Westminster House wherein I was once a prefect - I waited there, one night, for Soviet missiles to arrive after the Cuban Missile Crisis was revealed - and I left that extraordinary, red brick building with untold feelings that "we" had left many minefields in the world which I would have, as a journalist, to walk through. I was right.
But I do remember how wonderful it was those summer evenings to read Chaucer and Shakespeare and Donne and Milton and to feel that there was something about their work that would enliven me for all my life. Little did I realise how strongly I would later come to believe that it was the very breath of the air of the Weald of Kent that would overwhelm me.
I say this when I open my latest issue (Volume 37) of the Suttonian. For example, I find that John Henry Ablitt, a scholar of our school in 1926, has just died aged 94 and I notice in the magazine that "We have been notified of the death in 1992 of Gavin William Carpenter ... aged 79. He was the brother of the late Professor Garth Carpenter and the late Drew Carpenter ... He worked in the timber trade for his career after war service in the RAFC."
And I note also that "We have been notified of the death in December 1993 of Edward William Pain (1929, St Margaret's House, aged 81. Edward was the elder brother of Geoffrey Sholto Pain and Dennison Bishop Pain and uncle of Timothy Bishop Pain." And so my eye slips down the names of those old Suttonians who have passed us by.
"In January 2006, Alfred Brann Catt (1930, St Margaret's) aged 92. Alfred was the father of Anthony Catt [1963, Westminster House - my old house] who sadly died a month after his father and grandfather of Piers Catt (1996, Westminster House). Alfred farmed on the Romney Marshes for his whole life."
I love these memorials to my long dead and unknown school friends. Here, for example, we have, "at the beginning of June 2006" Roy Hart Dunstan, aged 89. "Roy left school 'at the headmaster's request' after a series of boisterous escapades. However, he always had great affection for Sutton Valence. He went on to Dulwich College where he was a school prefect and captain of athletics. He qualified as a dentist at King's College Hospital in London before serving as a surgeon lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. Thereafter, he was in dental practice until his retirement in 1974."
How much I love these "thereafters" and if only the stupid headmaster's request had been rescinded, what a fine man Mr Dunstan would have made to have been an old boy of my school. But let me continue, for the interest of readers, his CV after the Second World War.
"He was mayor of Warminster in 1985-86. He was closely involved with the International Order of Anysetiers (Commanderie of Great Britain). This was originally a guild of producers and traders in aniseed formed in France in the 13th century under the patrony of the kings of France. The Guild died in the 17th century but was revived in the Order of Anysetiers formed in 1955, opening its ranks to lovers of anis, gastronomy and convivial company."
In 1977 the Commanderie of Great Britain was established and Roy Dunstan was elected chamberlain at the first meeting held at Vintner's Hall, the headquarters of the Worshipful Company of Vintners.
Where do we go from here? On 2 December 2005, "suddenly but peacefully" in Guernsey, I'm informed that Geoffrey Austin Nops (St Margaret's, 1932), passed away aged 92. "On leaving school Geoffrey went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read law, he qualified as a barrister in 1937. He served in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War and was a prisoner of war from 1942 to 1945." And so it goes on.
Guy Goble died aged 83 and Peter Brill died aged 77. "As a major, he served in Sicily and Italy during the Second World War and later served in the Middle East, Germany and spent some time in the Ministry of Defence."
What did all these young men learn at Sutton Valence? Did they really understand that there was some kind of way in which we would all learn to live longer? Did we all appreciate something that, at the time, we didn't understand? And I look now, today, at the names in their old memoriam. Dunstan, Nops, Crowhurst, Lewis, Goble, Coleman, Butler, Molyneux-Berry, Scoble-Hodgins, Cresswell, Catt, Gorman, Hills, and I admire these long-dead men from a past I did not know.
We can admire those who went before us, from fathers whose names we never knew, but what was it that kept them alive? That wonderful view over the Weald of Kent, now so sadly curtailed (I went to have a look the other day and it is cynically cut back) or was there something of their belief in life which we don't have or cannot have. I do not know.
I do remember in the great pea-soupers of the 1950s - and how we have all forgotten the smoke and fumes of old smog - how I would go to check the door locks on the chapel and the rooms wherein these great names were locked. I don't think I cared for them. I don't think we do. But now I do remember as I look through the old boys' list of deaths how there were good men (this was before women came to Sutton Valence school!) who believed in things as I hope I do now.
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2874095.ece
This Day: P’Harcourt:
Civilian Death Toll High, Says MEND
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Port Harcourt, 08.20.2007
Spokesperson of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Gbomo Jomo has said that contrary to the much held view that most of the dead in the crack down on cultists and militants in Port Harcourt, Rivers State were cultists, the death toll was more of innocent civilian casualties.
It therefore dismissed the claim by the Joint Task Force that it had an upper hand against the cultists as it maintained the deaths resulted in the reckless shooting by the soldiers who did not care about the safety of people.Jomo who responded to questions from THISDAY also condemned the firing of a rocket at a hotel he said the military had suspected that Soboma George was and killing everybody inside without minding that it was a public place.
“What you have is the military’s version of events. Most of the dead are civilians who died as a result of reckless shooting by the military. As you know, the Nigerian military is poorly trained and highly indisciplined. That accounts for the alarming number of civilian casualties.
“The army fired rockets into a hotel where Soboma was suspected to be hiding, disregarding the safety of other guests. Soboma is alive and well and will speak whenever he chooses to”, he said.
He however clarified that fighters of MEND did not take part in the fight in Port Harcourt and so may not be very detailed in information regarding what actually led to the problem which has caused the imposition of curfew in the State.
The crackdown by the military which sources said has made the cult leaders to plead for understanding and negotiation from their hidings has however not elicited any positive response from the agencies.
It was gathered that some of the cult leaders have through their contacts in influential positions asked if there could be an understanding, adding that they were now ready for a true truce and reign of peace in the city.
It however appears that the state government and the security agencies are insisting that the party was over for all the cultists and militants with Governor Celestine Omehia saying that the stick side of the bargain was now a permanent solution.
Omehia had in a chat with news men insisted that he would not compromise the peace of the state and has therefore decided to deal with the malaise once and for all, promising further that soldiers will stay in the streets of Port Harcourt for the next six months.
He had after announcing the curfew for one week later clarified that it would stay for 10 days in the interim before he decides on whether to extend it or not. The action which has seen combined team of soldiers, army, Navy and Air force cracking down on the cultists who had breached the peace of the State for almost two weeks patrolling with Hilux vans mounted with General Purpose Machine Guns round all the streets of the city.
The action has however brought life back to almost a state of normalcy in Port Harcourt and its environs as the trouble makers have allegedly fled into the creeks and other states in and outside Niger Delta.
Meanwhile, an amalgam of civil society groups, “The Niger Delta Civil Society Coalition (NDCSC)” has blamed former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili for the carnage and said the only solution was to remove the government in the state and set up a new one through popular elections. Conducting another election which will be free and fair, they said, would produce people’s choice rather than those who ascended through intimidation.
In the alternative, they are asking that courts and tribunals where political cases concerning Rivers State were pending should be given free hand to dispose of them in the interest of justice.The coalition's position which was contained in a statement titled “Until Odili’s tyranny of antiquity is removed, no viable solution will ensue in Rivers State” was signed by the its Chairman , Dr. Anyankwee Nsirimovu.
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=86823
posted by attilav at 18:55
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