HIV/AIDS: What No Child Should Have – The Irish Catholic
November 2nd, 2006
It kills 8,500 people every day, and with over 40 million people infected worldwide, HIV-AIDS remains a major global
Kids at GOAL Nairobi CCEC playing football (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
health and life issue. While success stories such as Uganda’s ABC programme, stressing abstinence and fidelity, have brought infection rates down from 21% in the late 1980’s to a current level of 4-5%, countries such as Botswana have an infection rate of almost 40% of the adult population.
But HIV-AIDS is not just an adult problem. Children too are vulnerable to a sexually-transmitted disease, a social reality that is as absurd as it is sickening.
Over 2000 children (under -fifteen) are infected with HIV every day. Statistics on total under-eighteen infections are difficult to ascertain
Or, to put it another way, one child dies every minute from HIV-AIDS. Four are infected – every minute. So by the time you read this, depending on how quickly you read, or if you are interested enough to finish, maybe 8-12 children will have been infected with the virus by the end of the article. And 2-3 will be dead.
Just 12 years old, Kennedy is HIV-positive. His eyes fade shyly to the floor at each question, and flick around the room briefly as he answers, without focusing on anything, and quickly direct to the ground again. He is barely audible as he speaks.
Kennedy has been in the GOAL Rescue Centre since December 2004. He misses his two younger sisters – but he does not say very much. He does tell us however, “I like being here. But I want to find a home.”
Florence Gesage, GOAL social worker at the Nairobi rescue centre, takes up the story. (more…)
High Stakes in Somalia – ISN
June 20th, 2006
By Simon Roughneen in Nairobi for ISN Security Watch
Somalia Islamist militia members rest next to a truck carrying an anti aircraft gun that they have seized from the warlords. Photograph: Mohamed Sheikh Nor/AP
With allegations and denials abounding that Ethiopian army regulars crossed into Somalia on 17 June, the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) -Islamic Court Union (ICU) talks scheduled for Yemen this week will take on added bite.
And with a UN official suggesting that arms are flowing into Somalia in contravention of an embargo, security in Somalia and in the Horn of Africa region could be set to deteriorate in the coming days and weeks.
Militias loyal to the ICU wrested control of Mogadishu on 5 June from secular warlords widely viewed as backed by Washington, after a three-month battle that cost upward of 300 lives. The US sees the ICU as being a potential seedbed for Islamic terrorism.
Reports suggest that the Islamist militias are debating an attack on the TFG outpost of Baidoa, torpedoing the talks scheduled for Yemen and foreshadowing an ICU take-over of Somalia.
The terror threat: overblown or mishandled?
Somali Islam has historically been a Sufi-mystical variant, with scant regard for politicization or militancy. Somali society is renowned for its openness and oral culture, which makes the sort of foreign or ill-fitting extremism that wahhabist or al-Qaida operatives promote difficult to conceal.
However, terrorist attacks have emanated from Somali soil. (more…)
Orange Order says ‘we’re not to blame’ – ISN
September 14th, 2005
DERRY – At a press conference earlier on Wednesday, the Protestant Orange Order refuted claims by the head of Northern Ireland’s police that it was to blame for a weekend of rioting in Belfast and elsewhere.
This statement came hours after the announcement by Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain that the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) ceasefire was no longer recognized.
While there is no link between the Orange Order and the UVF, members of both organizations were involved in three days of violence in Belfast and other towns in Northern Ireland from Saturday to Tuesday.
Rioting broke out on Saturday after the local authorities rerouted an Orange Order parade away from a Catholic nationalist area of west Belfast. (more…)
Paisley willing to meet Archbishop – ISN
September 8th, 2005
DERRY – In his first public interview since the Irish Republican Army (IRA) vowed to end its armed campaign in July, hardline Protestant unionist leader Ian Paisley on Sunday gave a positive assessment of the troubled region’s political future and said he would agree to meet Ireland’s Catholic leader.
Speaking to Irish state broadcaster RTE, Paisley said he believed peace in Ireland was possible in his lifetime.
Paisley – the leader of Northern Irelands largest party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – has long been an ardent opponent of Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland, and is now the leading political voice in pro-British unionism in the area.
Paisley, who opposes the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement that ended the over 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland, went on to say he was willing to meet the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady. (more…)
‘Love Ulster’ campaign sparks criticism – ISN
August 30th, 2005
DERRY – A new grassroots campaign dubbed “Love Ulster”, on Monday began disseminating newsletters across Northern Ireland aimed at denouncing nationalist dominance over the political process.
The Love Ulster campaign will disseminate 200,000 free newsletters across Northern Ireland, highlighting unionist concerns at political concessions granted to Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) since the latter’s statement that it was ending its nearly four-decade campaign of violence against British rule. (more…)
Loyalist parades turn violent – ISN
July 13th, 2005
DERRY -Eighty police were injured last night as violence erupted in a Catholic-nationalist area of north Belfast after a day of Protestant Orange Order parades throughout Northern Ireland.
Tensions were high in the run-up to the parade through the mainly nationalist Ardoyne area of north Belfast. While the morning parade passed off peacefully, the return of the Orangemen through the area on Tuesday evening proved troublesome.
Last year, British Army units were attacked by nationalist rioters alleging a heavy-handed response to peaceful protests at the Orange Order march through the Ardoyne.
No army units were deployed to Ardoyne this year. However, efforts by Sinn Féin – the political party linked to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – to ensure that nationalist youths were restrained during the marches do not appear to have been completely successful. (more…)
Orange Order cuts party ties – ISN
March 14th, 2005
DERRY – The Orange Order, the largest non-religious Protestant organization in Ireland, has severed its century-old formal link to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), adding strength to the claim that moderate forces in Northern Ireland have been put on the defensive.
At a Saturday meeting of the Order’s ruling council, or Grand Lodge, the organization decided that political change meant that a link with any political party was no longer in its interests.
Speaking after the meeting, Orange Order Grand Master Robert Saulters said: “The Loyal Orange Institution will continue to lobby for the unionist cause as events require and we will seek to establish good relationships with all those engaged in the political interests of the unionist people.” (more…)
Russia Needs to Rethink North Caucasus – OCGG
October 1st, 2004
http://www.oxfordgovernance.org/fileadmin/Publications/SR001.pdf
by Simon Roughneen
Memorial to the victims of Beslan (epa)
No government should negotiate with child-killers. Without getting into any theological or ethical argumentsabout the relative value of one human life over another, shooting and blowing-up schoolchildren is a step beyond the pale, a taboo that defies any attempt at dispassionate afterthought. Russian President Vladimir Putin has legitimate reasons not to negotiate with the architects of Beslan – and has even greater reason to pursue rebels militarily.
However, this does not mean that the Russian president must ignore any openings to alter Russian policy in Chechnya – and the rest of the north Caucasus region. Years of human rights abuses, indiscriminate attacks, and abductions of those suspected of rebel connections, the cherry picking of Presidential candidates by Moscow, flawed elections and the total absence of due process surely allow for some revision of how Russia deals with Chechnya. Perhaps even more so now given that Moscow has military control over most of the republic, bar the mountains, and has air and artillery supremacy over the rest. However, Putin, linking Russia’s conflict with Chechen rebels to the international war on terror, shows no signs of revision of policy. (more…)
Unhappy Prospects for Afghan Security – OCGG
September 1st, 2004
http://www.oxfordgovernance.org/fileadmin/Publications/SB004.pdf
‘The security situation in Afghanistan is volatile, having seriously deteriorated in certain parts of the country. Attacks on national and international forces and on electoral, government and humanitarian workers and their premises in southern Afghanistan have intensified. At the same time, in a disturbing development, several of the most serious acts of violence since the start of the Bonn process took place in the north and west of the country, areas that had been considered low-risk’.
(more…)
Northern Ireland’s marching season passes quietly – ISN
August 16th, 2004
DERRY – The third major day of Northern Ireland’s marching season passed off without major incidents, marking a relatively trouble-free summer during what is usually a confrontational and edgy time for the province. On Saturday, over 15’000 members of the radical Apprentice Boys association – part of the Protestant “Loyalist” or “Unionist” camp, as opposed to the predominantly Catholic “Nationalist” or “Republican” faction – marched through Northern Ireland’s second city of Derry. (more…)
