Virginia’s Board of Health yesterday passed abortion clinic rules so stringent that critics say they could force most or all 22 of the state’s abortion providers to shut down, reports the Virginia Pilot . The rules— approved by state lawmakers earlier this year —are thought to be the strictest in the…
Continue reading …
Violation of Oslo accord discovered by MP who calls for action to investigate ‘what other breaches are occurring’ at the fair The world’s largest arms fair has thrown out two exhibitors after they were found to be promoting cluster munitions that have been banned by the UK and condemned by more than 100 other countries. The organisers of the London exhibition said they had been unaware that the material was available and an investigation had been launched. But campaigners rounded on the Defence and Security Equipment International fair, saying it was “unbelievable” that more thorough checks had not been undertaken. The action was taken after Caroline Lucas, the Green party leader, discovered that Pakistani arms manufacturers were actively promoting “banned cluster bombs” at their pavilions. Details of the munitions were in brochures readily available to potential customers. A statement from DSEI confirmed that the two stands had been closed on Thursday evening. “(We) can confirm that the Pakistan Ordnance Factory stand and Pakistan’s Defence Export Promotion Organisation pavilion have both been permanently shut down after promotional material was found … containing references to equipment, which after close examination, was found to breach UK government export controls and our own contractual requirements. [The] government fully supports the decision by DSEI to close the stand and the pavilion. We are currently investigating how this breach of our compliance system occurred.” Three years ago, the UK joined other signatories to the Oslo accord, which specifically prohibits “all use, stockpiling, production and transfer” of cluster weapons; they are considered particularly lethal because they are designed to release dozens, sometimes hundreds of “bomblets” on their targets. They have been widely condemned because they have killed and injured hundreds of civilians long after conflicts have ended. One third of all such casualties are thought to have been children. The episode is an embarrassment to the fair, which has had 1,300 firms from more than 40 countries seeking orders for weapons. Earlier this week, the defence secretary Liam Fox gave a speech there, saying that “defence and security exports play a key role in promoting our foreign policy objectives”. Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, has now written to Vince Cable, the business secretary, saying she remains “deeply concerned” at the level of scrutiny given to the companies who exhibit at DSEI, which has been running all week at the Excel centre in London’s Docklands. “I was able to find illegal advertising materials on the basis of one short visit to the exhibition with few resources at my disposal,” she said. “There’s no telling what other breaches are occurring and might be uncovered with further research.” It should not be left to MPs and campaigners to police illegal promotion of banned arms on British soil. Lucas said there is an “inherent conflict between the government’s promotion of military exports and its stated desire to help protect human rights overseas.” Oliver Sprague, of Amnesty International, said: “It is almost unbelievable. It’s not just cluster bombs, either. Earlier this week we found brochures (on different stands) which appear to show illegal torture equipment being advertised. It is quite amazing that it has taken a Green MP and Amnesty international to find things that are clearly illegal.” Kaye Stearman of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, condemned the “laxness” that had allowed the companies to promote illegal equipment. “They should never have been allowed in,” she added. A spokesman for DSEI said it had no further comment. The Pakistan Ordnance Factory could not be reached for comment. Earlier this week the Guardian reported that Pakistan was also advertising an “arms for peace” exhibition in Karachi next year as well as “gold-plated” submachine guns, “for collectors”. Arms trade Cluster bombs Pakistan London Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Deaths of mothers and babies fall by almost two-thirds after programme offering women money for hospital deliveries China has slashed the death rate of newborn babies by almost two-thirds in 12 years by promoting hospital births, research has shown. Deaths fell from 24.7 per 1,000 live births in 1996 to 9.3 in 2008. Only half of women gave birth in hospital at the start of that period, whereas by the end almost all did so outside the most deprived rural areas. The study, led by Xing Linfeng and Yan Guo of Peking University and published in the Lancet, was based on data from 37 Chinese urban districts and 79 rural counties. “The decline is spectacular across all the regions,” said Professor Carine Ronsmans of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who co-authored the study. “I think the Chinese government can be congratulated on its efforts to reduce neonatal mortality and maternal mortality – which has declined just as much.” She added: “It’s a combination of strengthening facilities, training providers, equipping them with the skills and drugs to offer better care – and, through insurance, encouraging families to give birth in hospitals. “It has moved away from the midwife programme to one that supports doctors – although in China, doctors range from someone trained for three to four years to what we would call an MD.” There was still some disparity, with babies in poorer areas four times as likely to die as in wealthier urban areas – apparently reflecting poorer quality services in township hospitals. “In urban China, babies born in hospital have a very low newborn mortality rate of 5 per 1,000, almost that of the UK, which is 3 to 4 per 1,000,” said Ronsmans. Ronsmans said separate research they had done had shown that there was very little variation between socioeconomic groups in the uptake of maternity services, even though the health insurance programme that China has introduced in rural areas covers only part of the cost of hospital births. According to UN figures, China has met its goal to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. It is also on course to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters. Last week Chinese officials said the rate had dropped further since 2008 thanks to new subsidies to help rural women. Fu Wei, a senior official with the ministry of health, said the figure had fallen from 34.2 per 100,000 to 30 out of 100,000 last year. More than 22 million mothers have benefited from a programme giving each pregnant woman in the countryside 500 yuan for hospital delivery. Fu said 96.7% of mothers from rural areas gave birth in hospitals last year. But she warned that birth defects remained a problem, affecting around 5% of newborn babies, compared with 0.68% in the United States. Authorities have begun distributing free folic acid to expectant mothers in rural areas to reduce neural tube defects. China Childbirth Health & wellbeing Infant and child mortality Health Maternal mortality Women Maternal health Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …“We’ve eliminated the inefficiency caused by moral hazard, by eliminating the asymmetric info.” A Federal Reserve official talking about ways to avoid future financial bailouts? A Pentagon war games planner discussing efforts to reduce the chances of a conflict with Chinese? Nope. It’s Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, talking
Continue reading …As Europe continues to battle its debt crisis, Timothy Geithner has a suggestion. The Treasury secretary today called on euro zone officials to leverage the region’s $440 bailout fund, an insider tells Reuters . Geithner didn’t provide details on how Europe should go about the move, nor did he point to…
Continue reading …
Hunter-in-chief Hisham Buhagiar likens the search to a game of chess. But he believes Gaddafi will be caught within two weeks Hisham Buhagiar hopes to reopen his carpet sales business in the next couple of weeks. He also hopes to catch Muammar Gaddafi. Buhagiar is the closest thing the Libyans have to a chief Gaddafi hunter, though he gently points out that Libya’s DIY revolution doesn’t much go in for job titles. Softly spoken and quietly confident, the 47-year-old admits he is learning as he goes – but predicts Gaddafi will be captured within two weeks. “We have to catch him, but if he resists he’s going to die,” Buhagiar, speaking in English, said. “We have to bring him to justice. It will show the world that after all the bad things he did, we still have the law.” The autocratic leader’s last public appearance was more than three months ago when he was photographed playing chess in Tripoli with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, head of the World Chess Federation. His Pimpernel-like vanishing act remains the main unfinished business of the revolution. Buhagiar’s operatives, however, claim to have seen Gaddafi twice this week near the southern city of Sabha. “One time he was in a convoy going from north to south,” said Buhagiar. “The other time he was having lunch; somebody from one of the loyal tribes invited him. He’s close to the area of Sabha but he’s on the move all the time.” He said information of this kind comes from informants among the local population and six unarmed surveillance experts who follow the trail but are usually a day behind. “When he was in Bani Walid we were about to move but we didn’t have enough men to do the job,” Buhagiar added. “He was on the move when we saw him there about two weeks ago.” Gaddafi travels inside a formidable military convoy, he continued, with a close ring of around 100 cousins and fellow tribesmen and an outer ring of about 300 to 500, including mercenaries. “When he stops, they close the circle,” said Buhagiar. “When he moves, they open the circle.” Gaddafi, who continues to release audio messages urging his loyalists to fight on, sleeps in a different place every night in one of his hallmark tents. “That is the way he finds comfortable, the Bedouin life,” adds Buhagiar. Libya’s hunter-in-chief cuts a dapper figure in dark jacket, designer shirt, jeans and brown leather shoes in the lobby of a five-star Tripoli hotel. He opens his laptop to bring up a map of Gaddafi’s suspected whereabouts, but cannot log on because the facial recognition technology fails to discern his face in the light. Buhagiar is working 16 hours a day on security issues but cannot devote all of his time to the search for the ousted leader. He is a novice when it comes to manhunts, and is puzzled at why the media is so interested. But, he said, “it’s very logical. It’s like a chess game. Everyone can see your moves but they cannot see what’s in your head.” Buhagiar set up a carpet company 20 years ago though his six shops in Tripoli were forced to close during this year’s rebellion. He spent much of the time in the Nafusa mountains, fighting in four battles and receiving gunshot wounds in both legs. But carpet-selling should serve him well in this new assignment; it’s a trade that requires familiarity with remote places, contact with desert tribes and useful foreign clients. A special forces team of 50 is working on the search, he said, “plus a lot of helpers. We are in contact with other battalions. If I need 1,000 guys, I can get 1,000. But we don’t want a confrontational war. We want to go in and snatch him.” Such is the diffuse and often disorganised nature of the Libyan forces that Buhagiar knows he is not the only Gaddafi hunter around. Recent reports have suggested help is also coming from French intelligence and small CIA teams. Asked if Nato is supporting the effort, he initially said “sometimes”. Then he corrected himself: “Until now, no. We are in good contact with Nato.” The nerve centre co-ordinating the search is not the stuff of a Hollywood spy thriller. Pointing to his laptop, Buhagiar joked: “This is my ops room.” He added: “We do have a place where we meet. We use phones, sat phones, Google, Skype. We don’t have maps on the wall because that gives away what you’re thinking.” About three or four calls a day come in from members of the public offering tipoffs. Some are unlikely to lead to the prize; oone recently claimed to have divined Gaddafi’s whereabouts through black magic). Buhagiar added: “We have a lot of good calls and a lot of speculation. It takes a long time to sort out but it’s good for us to plot his way. We’re using technology to find out the number of people surrounding him, intercepting calls from their cell phones. He doesn’t use a phone or any other technology.” But the challenge facing the Gaddafi hunters is daunting: Libya’s massive desert in the south is like another country. Buhagiar travelled there last week to a place that he names but asks not to be published. In this remote hinterland he has found people who are not aware of the uprising and believe “revolution” refers to Gaddafi’s coup of 1969. He said TV there is using this for propaganda and even shows old footage of Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, Bab al-Azizia, to give the impression he still controls it. “A lot of people don’t know what’s going on,” said Buhagiar. “They are not linked to the outside world. They think they’re fighting crusaders.” Libya Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa David Smith guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Yousaf Raza Gilani postpones opportunity to rebuild relations with US to attend to crisis that has left 300,000 living in shelters Pakistan’s prime minister has cancelled a trip to attend the United Nations in New York, where he planned to rebuild frayed relations with the US, saying he needs to co-ordinate emergency aid for flood victims at home. Yousaf Raza Gilani’s decision was intended to stave off criticism made last year when Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, visited a French castle as epic floods ravaged the country. But it was also testament to the seriousness of this year’s calamity. Aid agencies are scrambling to southern Sindh province where vast swaths of farmland have been inundated, more than 300,000 people are living in rough shelters and many more are at risk of malaria, dengue fever and food poisoning. Some 230 people have already died, and torrential monsoon rains continue to pound the region, smothering villages in as much as two metres of water. “The TV images are not as dramatic as last year but the situation is extremely serious,” said aid worker Jeffrey Shannon of Mercy Corps, speaking from Sukkur. “You have fetid, stagnant water, filled with human waste and decomposing animals, which has nowhere to go. In some places it’s turning black and starting to smell, and the malaria season is well under way. That’s not good.” Some of the worst affected areas were still struggling to recover from last year’s floods, which swamped one-fifth of the country. “The wrath of Allah has hit us twice,” villager Azrah Bibi told the UN news service IRIN. The floods coincide with another health crisis in Pakistan. A major outbreak of dengue fever has spread across Punjab province, leaving hospitals overflowing with victims, some of whom have died. At least 3,000 cases have been reported in Lahore alone; a senior civil servant is among those who have died. Whereas last year’s floods were caused by the Indus river bursting its banks, this year’s disaster is the result of unusually heavy monsoons in Sindh – a phenomenon some Pakistanis believe is caused by climate change. Oxfam says 4.2m acres of land have been hit, but the immediate worry is the spread of disease. The UN children’s fund estimates that at least 2 million children are at risk, although the exact extent of the devastation is difficult to gauge. Estimates of 5 million people being affected are based on rough population counts; a more accurate survey of the devastation is currently being carried out. There is little doubt, though, about the misery of those trapped by the rising waters. Around 1.2m homes have been washed away, causing entire villages to move onto the roadside in search of shelter. Despite the profusion of water, supplies of clean water for drinking and cooking are desperately short. Humayun Babas, an aid worker with World Vision, has just returned from Badin district in southern Sindh. “There is four or five feet of stagnant water yet mothers are having to cook and wash their children in it,” he said. “The mosquitoes are unbearable, even the livestock can’t stand it.” The international response to the flood was slowed by the Pakistani government, which refused aid agencies permission to deploy until one week ago – a delay that drew sharp criticism from aid workers. But the experience of last year’s floods has also left many aid agencies better positioned to scramble aid into position now. The British Red Cross said it had pre-positioned £1.7m worth of relief supplies such as tents and hurricane lamps to deal with such an emergency. It has also set up water treatment plants in two districts, describing conditions in temporary camps housing 300,00 people as “overcrowded and unsanitary”. Pakistan United Nations United States Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Mahmoud Abbas says he will go ahead with request to UN security council to recognise independence despite US warnings The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will go ahead with a request to the United Nations security council to recognise what amounts to a unilateral declaration of independence despite warnings from the US that it will raise “dangerous” false hopes and set back real self-determination. Abbas said in a televised address the Palestinians will see recognition next week of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of the borders of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital. He noted that the US president, Barack Obama, said a year ago he hoped to see an independent Palestine join the UN at this time. “Obama himself said he wanted to see a Palestinian state by September,” said Abbas. He said he would not bow to foreign pressure and what he called attempts to “buy off” the Palestinians. “We are going to the security council,” he said. “The world is sympathising with the aspirations of the Palestinian people.” Abbas’s defiant speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by the US, EU and Tony Blair in Jerusalem and Ramallah aimed at trying to avoid a showdown next week at the UN security council, where the Americans say they will veto a Palestinian request for recognition of statehood. The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the Palestinians had “miscalculated” if they believed the move will bring them closer to independence. Rice warned that even if the Palestinians were to win a vote in favour of statehood it will not change the situation on the ground. “There’s no shortcut, there’s no magic wand that can be waved in New York and make everything right. In fact, there’s a risk in that because if you’re an average person in the Palestinian territories and your hopes have been raised that by some action here in New York something will be different, the reality is that nothing is going to change. “There won’t be any more sovereignty, there won’t be any more food on the table. And this gap between expectation and reality is in itself quite dangerous,” Rice told the BBC. “The miscalculation here on the part of the Palestinians is that by coming to the United Nations they will be in a better position to negotiate … As tough as it is today to bring the parties to the table, it will be much much tougher after action here in New York. If the aim is to isolate and confront Israel, which is the effect of this action potentially in New York, then that is not going to encourage Israel to come back to the negotiating table any sooner.” Abbas rejected the assertion that the UN vote will jeopardise talks. “We will come back to negotiations on other issues. But we need full membership of the UN,” he said. “Over the past year we have expressed our readiness to take part in serious negotiations. Israel has wasted time and imposed facts on the ground [by expanding Jewish settlements].” Israel, he said, had nothing to fear from the move. “Israel is there, no one can deprive it of its legal status, it is a recognised country.” But, he added, Palestinian statehood would mean Israel could no longer claim it was colonising “disputed territory. This is occupied territory.” On Thursday, Rice met Jewish American leaders in New York to assure them the Obama administration will do it all it can to derail the Palestinian move at the UN. But she conceded that Washington was unlikely to be able to prevent the Palestinians from taking a request for recognition of full statehood to the security council, or alternatively turn to the general assembly, which can offer only enhanced observer status. Washington is instead concentrating on garnering support against the move. It is targeting non-permanent members of the security council, such as Colombia, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the hope of ensuring they at least abstain if they are not prepared to vote against a Palestinian state, and so lessen the impact of a US veto. The US is also pressing Britain to back its position. The UK, which has one eye on its standing in the Middle East particularly as it is heavily involved in Libya, says it is undecided and is waiting to see the wording of the Palestinian request. However, Britain has suggested it is prepared to consider supporting a watered down request in the general assembly where the Palestinians can in any case expected to win with a comfortable margin. In the Middle East, the Europeans and Tony Blair – envoy of the quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia – were attempting to engineer a compromise to head off the need for a US veto in the security council. One effort is to divert the whole issue to the general assembly. Another is for Abbas to submit his request for statehood but for it then to be put on hold while peace talks are revived. The request would then be activated if negotiations fail to reach an agreement within a year. The Palestinians are resistant to the idea in part because they do not believe the Israelis are serious about talks but also because it would not require a freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – an issue that has become a major obstacle to fresh negotiations. There were reports in Israel that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is prepared to consider an upgrade in the Palestinian status at the UN through a vote in the general assembly so long as it falls short of full membership. An Israeli official refused to confirm the reports but he did say that intensive efforts were continuing to find a compromise. “The goal is to avoid a diplomatic train wreck,” he said. “There are various ideas on the table to find a formula to allow us back to talks.” According to the Israeli official, there was a “greater understanding on the Palestinian side that the train wreck needs to be avoided”. But there was no certainty a deal could be reached. “The Palestinians climb up a tree, kick the ladder away, and then say help me get down the tree. It’s not always possible,” he said. However, there is no public indication the Palestinians are looking for a way to backtrack. Their team continues to insist they will demand full membership of the UN at the security council and will only seek a lesser status at the general assembly following a US veto. Netanyahu will address the general assembly next Friday hours after Abbas delivers his speech. Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian territories United Nations Israel Obama administration Tony Blair Binyamin Netanyahu Chris McGreal Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Sinn Féin to announce deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness’ bid to become head of state in Irish Republic Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief-of-staff who is now deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, is to run for the Irish presidency. Sinn Féin will announce his bid to succeed fellow northerner Mary McAleese as head of state in the Irish Republic later tonight. The Sinn Féin MP who admitted he was the Provisional IRA’s second-in-command in Derry during Bloody Sunday will hold a press conference on Sunday explaining why he is standing for president. But senior sources in Belfast were stressing that McGuinness’ decision to stand in the presidential race south of the border would not destabilise the power-sharing executive back at Stormont. McGuinness has built up a close personal relationship with Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist first minister in the five-party coalition in Northern Ireland. Although McGuinness will have to step down temporarily from the post as deputy first minister during the three-week long presidential campaign sources said that would be “mess but not a crisis” for the power-sharing government in Belfast. Whilst he is likely to increase Sinn Féin’s national share of the vote in the Republic above the 9% it gained in this year’s general election McGuinness is not expected to win the presidential contest. In the intervening three weeks before polling day in the Republic McGuinness may well be temporarily replaced as deputy first minister by another Sinn Féin figure possibly the Newry and Armagh MP, and former IRA prisoner Conor Murphy. The Derry-born former IRA commander’s entry into the presidential election will inevitably raise questions about his past inside the Provisionals. The Guardian revealed earlier this week in documents it had obtained containing evidence from a former military intelligence officer Ian Hurst alleging that McGuinness was aware of the murder plot against two top police officers in 1989. Hurt’s testimony to the Smithwick Inquiry into alleged Garda-IRA collusion includes claims that British state agent Freddie Scappaticci was centrally involved in the plot and reported directly to McGuinness who was then on the IRA’s council. If McGuinness were to be elected as head of state it would mark a career during which he had been chief of staff of AN organisation outlawed in both Northern Ireland and the Republic and ends up being chief of staff of the officially recognised Irish Defence Forces. Martin McGuinness Ireland Northern Ireland Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …11th-hour Supreme Court execution stay for Texas inmate whose race was a factor in trial
September 16, 2011 No CommentThe U.S. Supreme Court has issued a rare motion to stay the execution of a Texas Death Row inmate who had already ate his last meal and was prepared to be lethally injected Wednesday night. What makes the highest court’s 11th-hour intervention even more unusual is that convicted murderer Duane Buck’s lawyers aren’t arguing that
Continue reading …