MEDIA: Mr. Al-Jazeera Goes to Washington July 31st, 2009
Dear Editor:
Good and true journalism is telling the true facts and not watering down, as the main media in the States and Britain. More should know how Israel has been helped by other countries, for over 60 years,- to steal the land of the Palestinians, and why the Palestinians fight the Jews for the land rights that was stolen.
I love Farideh Farhi’s analysis. She always sees the big picture. In this case, I think events have taken new turns in that a rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei has occurred. Maybe it’s just a crack, but I
don’t think they can win this one separately. I am wondering what she thinks about this?
Also, though it is clear that the people on the ground have direct personal grievances and growing issues of social freedom vs repression along with lots of economic complaints, the motives of the leadership in
this case are also playing out. Mousavi does not have ‘liberal’ history, and it is very interesting to see Rafsanjani and Khatami speaking out on the same side. More interesting, solid members of the conservative establishment like Ali Larinjani are now openly critical of Ahmadinejad. But, though Ahmadinejad is the one who appears to be more and more embattled, what I know of the history of this conflict would lead me to assume that Khamenei, and possibly the doctrine that bestows ultimate power on one man, is the actual target. Any dialog on that?
ENVIRONMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: How Friendly is Biodegradable Plastic? July 27th, 2009
Dear Editor:
There is a lot of confusion about plastic and which is compostable, biodegradable, and degradable. There are basically three plastics on the market that claim to be biodegradable; oxy-biodegradable which you mention in your article, PLA (A plant starch based plastic) which is mostly made from food crops, and EcoPure biodegradable plastic.
Oxy-degradable doesn’t actually biodegrade, it degrades, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces until they are to small to see. The polymer is still there it’s just invisible to the human eye..that isn’t a good thing for our environment.
PLA plastics are compostable, but only in a commercial composting facility. Commercial composting facilities are far and few between and that means most PLA plastics will end up in a landfill. PLA plastics won’t biodegrade in a landfill and once they arrive there, they will languish for a long time.
EcoPure biodegradable plastic was developed by Bio-Tec Environmental, in Albuquerque, NM. EcoPure is an additive that will make all plastics biodegradable in all applications. ENSO Bottles of Phoenix, Arizona, just introduced the world’s first truly biodegradable plastic bottle using the EcoPure additive with traditional PET plastic. The ENSO bottle can be recycled, and will biodegrade in an anaerobic or aerobic microbial environment.
Plastics are an important part of our lives and we need them. However, we also need plastics which are more environmentally friendly. We need plastics that aren’t harmful for us and future generations and biodegradable plastics are one solution toward improving our environment.
HEALTH-AFRICA: Where To Find A Million New Nurses? July 27th, 2009
Dear Editor:
I commend you on your coverage of the health professional crisis in Africa. I would like to point out that in every country mentioned in your article, there are teams of volunteer Cuban doctors providing the preventive and curative community-based medicine you laud. With over 30,000 volunteers, including family physicians, specialists, nurses, and technicians posted in 70 countries around the world (most in the Global South), I assure you, these Cubans are making a difference in health status. To read more and see evidence-based results over 45 years of international health cooperation, I urge you to see MEDICC Review, the International Journal of Cuban Health and Medicine: www.medicc.org/mediccreview
SRI LANKA: Clinching a Crucial IMF Lifeline July 22nd, 2009
Dear Editor:
Sri Lankan leaders will not resolve the ethnic problem, for; this has been and will be used to win elections in the south. Sinhalese leaders go to election on the promise of resolving this problem but once the election is over it will be postponed until the next one. India gives in to all the demands made by the mono-ethnic Sri Lankan leader who is the most nationalistic of all the previous ones without any action on Tamils’ issue. He appointed hard liners to key posts to ensure no reasonable solution will be tabled or arrived during his tenure. Tamils will be annihilated slowly and the media that dares to highlight his complexities will be silenced. The west is the only hope to steer Sri Lanka to a peaceful and sustainable solution and curb human rights violations but India’s apparent paranoia with Chinese influence in the region seems to let the Sri Lanka off the hook.
CENTRAL AMERICA: Shades of Coups Past - And Yet to Come? July 19th, 2009
Dear Editor:
When you have an elected President that has plans to take away the constitutional rights of the majority of the people of his country; you will similar things happening. Especially when he is breaking the laws of that country. When they see what is happening in Venezuela; which they want no part of; that is why they moved the way they did. They want to remain free people; they will have elections in November and they will elect a new president.
ENVIRONMENT-NIGERIA: Playing With Fire July 18th, 2009
Dear Editor:
Please do not forget to mention that Shell Nigeria is 60%-owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is 100%-owned by the Nigerian government.
Failure to mention this important fact will lead most of your readers to assume that Shell Nigeria is controlled by Royal Dutch Shell, the mega-global corporation, which is not at all true. Those readers may also think that Royal Dutch Shell is the impediment to ending gas-flaring, which is also not at all true.
It’s no coincidence that the world’s major gas-flaring countries are Russia and Nigeria, both of whom have state-owned companies (Gazprom + NNPC) dominating the oil & gas sector.
MIDEAST: Report Urges Continued U.S. Diplomatic Push July 18th, 2009
Dear Editor:
Crime in the US jumped 90 percent over the past 8 years and climbing. Running rampant like shootings, raping, killing, robberies, home invasions, car jackings, and such, by our own people, but Obama just like Bush, keeps pushing forward to conquer the Middle East, creating more wars, especially with Iran for Israel, instead of making our country safer. How will talks involving Israel help between them and Syria, or the Palestinians if Israel persists in the outcome to be only what they want?
US-IRAN: To Deal or Not to Deal, That Is the Question July 17th, 2009
Dear Editor:
President Obama gave a speech to the Iranians on the occasion of the Persian New Year, 21 March, in which he called for a dialogue. However the previous week he had just renewed the economic sanctions that were the defining policy of the Bush administration. Understandably the reaction to the speech was cool.
In reply, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i gave a speech which was scarcely reported in the western media. A paragraph is worth repeating.
“They tell us to negotiate, to start relations. They have the slogan of change. Where is the change? What has changed? Clarify this to us. What changed? Has your enmity toward the Iranian nation changed? What signs are there to support this? Have you released the possessions of the Iranian nation? Have you removed the cruel sanctions? Have you stopped the insults, accusations, and negative propaganda against this great nation and its officials? Have you stopped your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? What has changed? They talk of change, but there are no changes in actions. We have not seen any changes. Even the literature has not changed. The new US President, from the very moment of his official appointment as President, made a speech, and insulted Iran and the Islamic government. Why? If you tell the truth, and there are changes, where are these changes? Why can we see nothing? ”
Is that clear enough ? Four months have passed, but still we wait for the President to change and make a friendly gesture as an opening gambit to meaningful talks.
Senator John Kerry was interviewed by Financial Times, 10 June 2009, in which he labeled the long standing demand that Iran stop enriching uranium as “ridiculous, on its face, because Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and whether they are inside or outside their obligations, to ask them to give up something that was within their rights within the treaty assuming they were up to their obligations is a non-starter. It was bombastic diplomacy. It was wasted energy. … They have a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose. But they don’t have a right, obviously, to be outside of the other restraints of the IAEA and of the non-proliferation agreement.”
Now if Obama was to adopt that line, it could act as the circuit-breaker. But instead he repeats the assertion about the Iranians having a nuclear weapons program that is denied by the November 2007 NIE and the IAEA. The only explanation for this is that despite all the rhetoric, the US is not interested in dialogue. Meanwhile Vice President Biden’s comment, about not being able to stop Israel from doing what it feels is in its sovereign interest, indicates the military option is still very much on the table.
Nothing has changed. Obama’s policy is exactly the same as Bush’s policy.
CENTRAL AMERICA: Shades of Coups Past - And Yet to Come? July 17th, 2009
Dear Editor:
It may be important to add that it may not only be the Central American right which looks toward military means to depose elected leaders if the Honduran coup succeeds or is seen as succeeding sufficiently.
I can easily imagine Peru’s Alan Garcia looking warily around at the allegiances of Peruvian military officers. I can easily imagine Felipe Calderon of Mexico wondering if one of his aspiring generals might use some supposedly Constitutional incident or friendly court to dispose of Calderon in favor of someone more friendly to the military-penetrating narco-traffickers. I can easily imagine Colombian paramilitaries getting tired of carrying out the dirty work of right wing administrations and deciding they wish to be more directly back in the driver’s seat — maybe not Uribe, but deposing his successor.
Right wing leaders too would have to fear some aspiring left wing officer waiting for a chance to get a friendly Congress or court to declare some action un-Constitutional or criminal or seditious or whatnot.
Such precedents may not lead simplistically back to the early 1970s junta farm model.
I vote for this project to remain solely NGO-operated as govt intervention may ruin the grass-roots nature of the endeavour. Perhaps there should be a simple dialogue and some form of co-operation with the Ministry of Tourism whereby BMS could encourage advertising for eco-tourism expeditions and the like to be a part of educational promotion/awareness for international visitors to the area. This type of thing is already happening in other parts of the world like some areas of Asia and Central and South America.
DEVELOPMENT: Social Enterprise in the Swazi Highveld July 17th, 2009
Dear Editor:
Brilliant!!!!!! This project is a wonderful community-oriented initiative. Let’s hope the govt doesn’t succeed in de-railing it! Keep up the great reporting!!!! IPS certainly knows how to spread the news around!!!!
LESOTHO-WATER: One Dollar Per Square Kilometre: Now Get Off Your Land July 16th, 2009
Dear Editor:
Your 10th June 2009 story by Thabo Mohale about the Metolong Dam and Water Supply Programme is riddled with inaccuracies that need correction.
The claim that the Metolong Dam has a price tag of $2 billion is erroneous. In fact, the entire cost of the Metolong Dam and Water Supply Program is estimated at $284 million, of which dam costs are likely to run between $40 and $50 million. The $284 million tag roughly equals 2.27 billion Maloti, the local Lesotho currency.
Furthermore, the story inaccurately claims that 250 rural families will lose land and face relocation. When the project is complete, it is estimated that less than 10 families if any, will need to be resettled due to their proximity to the water’s edge. This relocation will be done in a manner that maintains social networks, and focuses on restoring livelihoods and providing adequate compensation in line with market rates. Provision has been made for independent assessment of compensation rates, and where these are assessed to be lower than the government rate, the difference will be compensated. Please note that the establishment of the Metolong Dam Committee, comprising local government representatives and elected community leaders, was recommended by the Government and project financiers as a proven way of reaching out to and engaging with local people. It is not because project-affected people wanted to defend their land rights and livelihoods as claimed by your story.
The Metolong Authority is committed to using cutting-edge design and technical expertise to minimise potential social impacts on the communities. This important programme will deliver water supply to Maseru and surrounding areas, necessary for securing economic growth and reducing poverty. I am sure you will agree that inaccurate reporting does little to serve the cause of sustainable development and is a disservice to your readers.
You are urged to retract the story or publish this letter in its entirety.
IPS issued a correction on Jul. 22. The original story contained indeed a serious error. It misstated the compensation offered to Metolong families displaced by the dam as less than a dollar per square kilometre. The offer from the Metolong authority was in fact just under a dollar per square metre.
IRAQ: Is Another Conflict Inevitable? July 15th, 2009
Dear Editor:
In the above mentioned report, Mr. Mohammed A. Salih stated that “the draft constitution of the country’s northern Kurdistan region declared a range of disputed areas part of the historical Kurdish homeland.” This statement and the entire report are biased. What is the historical homeland? The Assyrians populated this area long before any one. The area then was controlled by Persians. When the Muslim army from Arabia moved up north via southern Iraq, (around 635) the fight took place in
Cenjar and Today’s Mousel with Persians. By the tenth century the Turks started to move into the region and brought with them the Kurds from Northern Pakistan. By the eleven century the Seljuq Turks heavily relied on Kurds in their Army and brought them with them to control Iraq. As the Turks moved from Central Asia a few centuries later, they relied on the trusted soldiers of Kurds; whom they brought with them. This reached its peak with the establishment of the Ottoman Empire. In fact the Assyrians were
slaughtered and Arabs were displaced even from their major hub, Dyar Baker in today’s Turkey (note that Dyar Baker refers to a major Arab tribe which settled this area in the early years of Islam; now the area is mostly populated by Kurds).
If Mr. Salih refers to Northern India and Pakistan as the historical Kurdish homeland, this might be more accurate.
The following information might be useful for him:
1. After the 1958 Revolution, the foreign Oil Companies incited Assyrians to stir troubles in Kirkuk. After that, the Oil corporations financed, in cooperation with the CIA and the Egyptian and British intelligence, what is known, General Al-Tabagichali (an army officer of Turkmen origin) Revolt in Kirkuk against the
Patriotic regime of Qussam. Most of those who participated in the revolts were Turkmens and Arabs from A-Aubadi tribe. Since the Iraqi Communist Party used to control the Street at that time, the
Communists were targeted by Al-Tabagichali supporters. So Qussam and the Communists had to invite Kurds to help them to put the Revolt down. This constitutes the beginning of the Kurdish intrusion in the
city.
2. According to national census of 1957, most of the population in Kirkuk was Turkmens and Arabs. This is the reason that the Kurds refused to consider the 1957 census. According to 1910s Ottoman population records, 99% of the city of Kirkuk population was Turkmens.
ENVIRONMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: How Friendly is Biodegradable Plastic? July 14th, 2009
Dear Editor:
Plastics are changing and there are several organizations who are trying to help reduce plastic pollution. There are organizations that are making unsubstantiated claims that there is no data proving plastic biodegradation and recycling compatibility. I believe their claims are misleading consumers and inhibiting environmentally sound solutions for reducing a growing pollution problem. Most of these claims are coming from the producers of PLA (Corn starch based plastics). I believe their motive is more for profit then helping the environment. Plastic pollution is a huge worldwide problem. In 2007 nearly 4.3 billion pounds of PET containers were not recycled. These bottles end up in landfills or as litter contributing to the tremendous amount of plastic pollution in our oceans. ENSO Bottles, and Bio-Tec Environmental, are both environmental companies dedicated to responsibly addressing the growing plastic pollution problem through the development of biodegradable plastics. ENSO Bottles with EcoPure are biodegradable plastic bottles that use organic compounds to promote biodegradation though microbial digestion. That digestion (biodegradation) only occurs when the ENSO bottle is placed in a highly active microbial environment. ENSO bottles have the same physical properties as standard PET and do NOT fragment, degrade or break down from environmental conditions such as UV, moisture and oxygen. When ENSO bottles are recycled they have the same useful life as other durable plastics. We understand that change frightens some and new misunderstood technology may cause well meaning people to reject something that is good for us all. ENSO supports recycling programs and works closely with recycling organizations and other environmental organizations to improve recycling rates and reduce plastic pollution. ENSO bottles with EcoPure(tm) have been tested and validated for the following: (1) Recyclability through a third-party lab for ASTM D 1003 (Haze and Transmission). (2) ASTM D 4603 (Intrinsic Viscosity) (3) ASTM F 2013 (Acetaldehyde), Fluorescence Visual, and Visual Black Specks and Gels. (4) ASTM D 5511 Standard Test Methods, a standard for biodegradation testing in anaerobic environments. Results clearly indicate ENSO bottles with EcoPure(tm) biodegrade through natural microbial digestion. All test results meet industry specifications. If you are interested in publishing an article about biodegradable plastics we stand ready to provide you any background information you might need. ENSO is working hard to reduce plastic pollution and restore public confidence in plastic products.
RIGHTS-SOUTH KOREA: Prostitution Thrives with U.S. Military Presence July 14th, 2009
Dear Editor:
This article hides the fact that many Korean men, mostly married ones, engage in prostitution on a far more regular basis than American soldiers stationed in Seoul. It also creates the illusion that there are
countless hordes of fatherless children running around begotten by American men. This is false. One thing I can assure you is that American as a whole, though sometimes engaging in prostitution, treat people in that industry with a lot more respect than Korean men who, following the misunderstood rules of Confucianism, tend to treat those of lower status like absolute garbage. This is another one of those articles which portrays the individual American, who really doesn’t want to be in a hostile country such as South Korea, as an unrestrained animal. The writer of this article apparently hasn’t a clue to the reality of things. Prostitution thrives because Korean men demand it. The institution was created for American soldiers (amongst others) in the area of Pusan during the Korean War in order to keep foreign soldiers away from other areas, hoping that an abundance of prostitutes, Korean and otherwise, in a concentrated area, would suffice. The institution of prostitution proved to be an economic boom and a sexual outlet for Korean men who are not allowed by social mores to procure sex in the natural way.
Mike Ebertz
Suncheon National University
Suncheon, ROK
MIDEAST: Nobel Laureate ‘Abducted’ by Israeli Navy July 12th, 2009
Dear Editor:
After 2 weeks, why has this important news, not yet reached the United States. We have only learned about this through the Internet. Not the Media, be it television, radio or press, not one word. Why has not the U.S. Government spoken up, in defense for these people, like those of other nations have?
SOUTH AFRICA: Fight Sexism to Help Young Mothers July 10th, 2009
Dear Editor:
This story really touches some of us as we are the health workers who may have an impact to help in promoting IEC in the schools for starters. I am one of the nurses who has done an effort to promote IEC through schools voluntarily and radio health talk show with reproductive health talk from Soweto when I was working for PHRU (PERINATAL HIV RESEARCH UNIT).
There were barriers that one would be frustrated when giving a health talk. Teachers would be observers or listeners when you give such a talk, but the problem after a nurse’s talk the teacher would come and contradict the whole thing.
Students would be afraid to ask questions related to the context because the teacher is around. Obviously the methodology of teaching by the nurse will be different from a teacher and by the way I would not be teaching Biology. They could not comprehend that one was talking facts of life and preparing teens to arm with skills of saying “No” like Asanda who had to be pregnant.
The experience of being in Primary health care and seeing /hearing all the problems that teens are facing, is not what the teachers may be able to see. You know it became worse when you talk about sexuality and a religious teacher starts the biblical recitation “no sex before marriage”, and the subject is distorted.
I think there is a need for the department of education and health joining together and formulate a wing of such health subjects ,Real topics from people who have knowledge cause I did not have an idea when they talk of life skills teacher what is the component of it. In future maybe those who can afford to volunteer and give talks like pregnancy ,physiology of, signs and symptoms, complications and management - you know am talking about the Reproductive health talk involving males.
Private nurses are there to be utilised because sometimes they do not have clients/patients ,maybe they can be helped write proposal to the dept. of health and education than start in a small scale and let’s see how it goes. How big or how much work does the school nurse have, what is the limitation of their scope, where they can also be utilised to address socio-health problems.
Unfortunately, I am not able to continue volunteering because I also need to work and see to it that I pay all my debts, but I am happy to say where I passed I made a mark and to date I still do in a small scale and I do feel that our teens and women out there they need a lot of IEC.
For your interest you may ask Jozi Fm in Soweto about the impact of health programme that was hosted by Donald and Sr Nikiwe. I am for the women’s health and I love talking to the teens, with the involvement of males
RELIGION-BRAZIL: Intolerance Denounced at UN July 9th, 2009
Dear Editor,
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UKCG, or Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus - IURD), in Portuguese) requests, from the IPS News website, its right of reply, regarding a report that goes by the title “Religion-Brazil: Intolerance Denounced at UN”, published on July 3rd.
To avoid even greater complications, UKCG clarifies that:
1 - The church considers, at the very least, the initiative of the Committee Against Religious Intolerance (CCIR) as misdirected, when it denounces UCKG to the U.N Human Rights Council, although the church respects the Committee’s history and ideals. The CCIR lacks basic knowledge on the UCKG and its founder’s, bishop Edir Macedo Bezerra, principles;
2 - It refuses to accept any and every kind of aggression, be it physical or verbal, specially those of religious nature;
3 - Contrary to what was published on the IPS News website, UCKG never led, consented or stimulated any physikcal or moral attack on Brazilian people that follow other religions. As a bearer of the biblical principles, UCKG is radically against any kind of violent acts;
4 - Never did UCKG portray, nor it ever will, Jews as “killers of Christ”, Catholics as “devil worshipers”, traditional Protestants as “false Christians” or Muslims as “demonic”. Those are false and difamating claims. As an example, UCKG has built, in Rio de Janeiro, a cultural center with the world’s biggest model of the city of Jerusalem. It is also a tribute to the Jewish community;
5 - The church strongly denies the accusation of practicing a xenophobic, sectarian and racist speech, based on exploiting the least favoured population. UCKG theological principles respect, unequivocally, the Brazilian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
6 - It respects all other beliefs, although, in some cases, it disagrees on the religious doctrines that they spread. This is a right that is secured by the Brazilian Constitution. In a statement for Brazilian newspaper “Folha de S. Paulo”, about the CCIR allegations to the UN, Ricardo Mariano, who is a PhD on Sociology, states that “the views adopted by the Universal Church (towards other religions) are motivated exclusively by religious issues”;
7 - The founder of UCKG, bishop Edir Macedo, is the major shareholder of Rede Record, Brazil’s second largest television network, which transmits to over 165 countries around the world through Record International. Through the years, our country’s public and advertisement market have learned not to confuse the owner’s religious option from the editorial position of the several media outlets that belong to him. The illation that those media vehicles are used to attack other religions is nothing but rumours fed by rival communication groups, directly interested in maintaining a long-time monopoly on Brazilian media;
The church didn’t help found any political party - which is forbidden by Brazilian electoral laws. It does, however, have political representatives, as well as other churches. The Brazilian Republican Party doesn’t have any connection with bishop Edir Macedo and it states, on its official website, the basic commitment to be a “democratic political institution, defending the common well-being and a free society”. Its most well-known representative is Brazil’s vice-president, Jos de Alencar, who is notoriously Catholic;
9 - It doesn’t have any responsibility whatsoever on the lawsuits against the newspaper “Folha de S. Paulo”. The curch, however, supports all the citizens that felt offended by the wave of attacks the newspaper perpetrated against the Pentecostal community. UCKG firmly believes that the freedom of speech and the right to justice are the main pillars of Democracy;
10 - UCKG promotes many social projects in Brazil and in other countries, many of them award-winning, that attend to thousands of needing people, children and handicapped - of all ethnic groups, gender and religions;
11 - Contrary to what the CCIR affirms, UCKG is a worldwide reference on the support of marginalized people. It supports financially and mantains with voluntary workforce one of the biggest works on ressocializing and social assistance to minorities in Brazil and dozens of other countries, in institutions such as penitentiaries, youth detention centers, hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, asylums and orphanages;
12 -The church is present in more than 170 countries on the six continents, promoting evangelization and spreading the principles of the Holy Bible, which value and teach religious tolerance;
13 - It is responsible for one of the biggest evangelical works ever performed on Africa, the so-called ‘Dark Continent’, marked by poverty and racial prejudice. UCKD has legally established temples in 25 countries, all recognized by the local governments. Only in South Africa, there are over 160 temples. As an example, every week, eight thousand Southern Africans, mostly black people, fill UCKD’s Cathedral at Soweto. A simple CCIR visit might corroborate the love and dedication that UCKD presents to South Africa’s black and marginalized population. This work is usually led by white Brazilian bishops and priests;
14 - The biography of bishop Edir Macedo was released at the UN headquarters, in New York city, two years ago. A sign of good will and credibility towards a person that has a life story and religious ideals that are transparent and world-wide respected. The book evidences the separation between dogmae, politics, media and individual rights. To mix them all up, like CCIR did, is to create a dangerous and religiously prejudiced situation.
We await, with MAXIMUM URGENCY, the publication on the IPS News website, of our right of reply.
Brasil, July 7, 2009.
UNIVERSAL CHURCH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
POLITICS-BOTSWANA: Parties Block Women Candidates for Upcoming Elections July 7th, 2009
Dear Editor:
This article is a pretty good dive into the topic and good that it notes Khama’s double tongue on this. Indeed, he has been eager to use gender in his rhetoric while doing little concrete to address the issue.
However, the article does not touch on two key areas.
1) *It does not address factional power plays, which I believe to be the primary lens for viewing the current debate around women’s representation within the BDP during Khama’s presidency. *
Khama’s interest is intra-party power politics and creating a coalition within the BDP that will favor his A-Team faction (led by VP Merafhe and Min. Nkate) over the Barata Phati faction (led by P.H. Kedikilwe and D. Kwelagobe).
The addition of more specially elected MPs that Khama will appoint is as much about finding an acceptable (seemingly worthy) rationale/cover to increase his faction’s margin in the BDP parliamentary caucus as it is about women’s representation. Now Khama will be able to add 8 MPs atop whatever
the factional split is in the BDP caucus after the election. And he has doubled his latitude for patronage to reward loyalists from 4 to 8 seats.
*2) The article does not touch on the contest for BDP Central Committee posts that will climax at the party congress in Kanye in less than two weeks.** *This is currently the primary venue for this discussion and debate within the BDP.
In recent addresses to the Women’s Wing and a handful of other public comments HE and VP Merafhe have waxed about the need for women’s empowerment in the political sphere (as the article quotes). This stance has been promoted in an effort to get the Women’s Wing to vote in a more or less
homogeneous block at the party congress for Mma Seretse–Khama’s preferred candidate for BDP Chairperson (and two other A-Team aligned women who are contesting for Central Committee posts)–over factional rival Kwelagobe and a slate of candidates from Barata Phati.
If the Women’s Wing votes as a block with the A-Team faction they have an opportunity to rid the Central Committee of Khama’s foremost headache within the BDP (Kwelagobe). If the women’s wing vote is fragmented Khama’s allies on the A-Team have the potential (albeit distant) to be the minority within the BDP’s Central Committee.
The stakes are high and the tensions are mounting as the party congress nears.
Kwelagobe is no gem, but–with the opposition still marked by disunity, inadequacy, and anemia–Barata Phati’s attempt to wrest control of the Central Committee from the A-Team (or at least retain control of a few of the key positions) presents one of the last remaining checks on Khama’s unfettered power across the full breadth of Botswana’s political landscape. Lt. General Seretse Khama Ian Khama knows this and has opportunistically waved the flag of women’s political participation as part of a strategy to
stamp out the last vestiges of dissent within the party structures.
I send these comments in my personal capacity as an interested observer of politics in Southern Africa
RIGHTS-SOUTH KOREA: Prostitution Thrives with U.S. Military Presence July 7th, 2009
Dear Editor:
What about all the massage shops and red-light districts in the country? US military or other foreigners involved in any of that? Doubtful right? Was this story written to deflect the terrible way in which Korean women in general are treated by male Koreans? Certainly blaming the US military at this stage is a waste of space in any publication.
POLITICS: U.N. Plan for Financial Crisis Derided as Weak July 6th, 2009
Dear Editor,
Thanks, Thalif, for the coverage of the meeting. As far as I know IPS was the only news agency that consistently followed through the daily development and the multiple dynamics of the conference.
Sincerely,
Gigi
Gigi Francisco
General Coordinator
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
POLITICS: U.S. Uses False Taliban Aid Charge to Pressure Iran July 3rd, 2009
Dear Editor:
This report could also have mentioned claims by major players on this issue -including Robert Gates- that even if Iran is not organizing arms shipments to Taliban, the government must at least know about the shipments. A potential diplomatic sticking point in the slowly thawing relationship between America and Iran could then be America’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction about Iran’s efforts to stop these suspected shipments, which will remain unproven and denied by Iran.
AFRICA: Food for 12 Billion. So Why Did 854 Million Go Without? July 2nd, 2009
Dear Editor:
My name is Michael Anthony and I read the article AFRICA: Food for 12 Billion. So Why Did 854 Million Go Without?
The last part of the story states the following:
As a solution, Pietila proposed that agriculture be removed from the ambit of the World Trade Organisation because, as people have a right to food, food is not a commodity.
The U.N. agencies dealing with food and agriculture, such as the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation, have to be welded into one organisation that should also take responsibility for trade in food products, she said.
Seth also said investment is needed in agriculture, specifically for basic economic infrastructure, seed, water and equipment. (END/2007)
My question is:
If this three-day meeting hosted by the Conference of Non-governmental Organisations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) and the United Nations Millennium Campaign was held back in 2007; can you please tell me what the current state of affairs are? Has anything changed, or any positive progress been made?
Thank you for your time and information; you have opened my eyes to something I did not know. I hope all is well and I look forward to your response.
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