Sep 5, 2009

Drought Puts Focus on a Side of India Left Out of Progress - NYTimes.com

PIPRI VILLAGE, India — Two very different recent scenes from India: At a power breakfast in New Delhi for many of the country’s corporate leaders and top economic officials, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared that India had “weathered the storm” of the global economic crisis and was witnessing “green shoots” in industry and services that signaled a return to more rapid growth by next year.

Hundreds of miles away in this farming village in Andhra Pradesh, in the south, weeds were the only green shoots sprouting in the black soil that belongs to the widow Chandli Bai. Her field went 12 weeks without rain during India’s annual monsoon season before showers finally arrived on Aug. 23, splattering down too late onto the dry dirt. Her summer crop of lentils was stillborn in the ground.

“We eat once a day,” said Mrs. Bai, 65, explaining how she and her family had survived the lack of rain.

For the past year, as the economic crisis convulsed much of the world, India wobbled but never tumbled over. And now that the world is starting to pull itself out of the mire, India seems poised to resume its rapid economic expansion. Government officials are projecting that growth will reach or surpass 6 percent this year and approach 8 percent next year, almost the pace that established India as an emerging global economic power second only to China.

But the cautious optimism about the broader economy has been tempered by a historic summertime drought that has underscored the stubborn fact that many people are largely untouched by the country’s progress. India’s new economy may be based on software, services and high technology, but hundreds of millions of Indians still look to the sky for their livelihoods; more than half the country’s 1.1 billion people depend on agriculture for a living even though agriculture represents only about 17 percent of the total economy.

No one thinks India is facing the type of famines that struck it decades ago; government grain stocks can replenish any shortfalls. But the drought has focused attention, again, on the problems facing Indian agriculture as the population continues to expand at the same time that water resources come under greater pressure.

During the 1960s, India introduced a “green revolution” that sharply improved grain output. Now, many analysts are calling for a second green revolution to address the complicated problems presented by global warming, rapidly diminishing groundwater supplies and stagnant incomes for farmers.

“A lot of us have gotten carried away and forgotten these problems exist,” said Bharat Ramaswami, an economist at the Indian Statistical Institute. “We need to think a little more about how this economic growth could better filter down to the poor.”

Last spring, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Congress Party won a resounding victory in national elections by promising to address this inequality, but the government has yet to announce major programs.

One problem now, as opposed to in the 1960s, is that there are no obvious technological breakthroughs to radically change the status quo. During the green revolution, India introduced high-yield seeds and fertilizers and expanded irrigation.

Today, the challenge is more nuanced, involving a nationwide coordination effort to improve irrigation, better capture rainwater and conserve groundwater while lifting production — the type of complicated management task that critics say is rarely the strong suit of the Indian bureaucracy.

Every summer, India awaits the monsoon. Some years bring too much rain and catastrophic flooding; others bring too little rain. This summer, rainfall is down 25 percent, and roughly half of the rural districts were declared drought zones. As production has fallen, prices have risen for staples like rice.

To the eye, the drought can be deceptive. In Pipri Village, as in other areas, greenery is evident, even as nearly every field without irrigation is stunted.

In recent days, rains have returned to Pipri and some other areas, but not in time to save the summer, or kharif, crop. Located three hours from the high-tech center of Hyderabad, Pipri is one of thousands of Indian villages decimated by the drought.

On a recent afternoon, Mrs. Bai, the widow, stood at the edge of her ragged seven acres, her toes caked in dirt as she motioned to the remains of the pyre used to cremate her husband four months ago. The family had borrowed 80,000 rupees, or about $1,640, to treat his kidney disease; the failed crop left them without money to pay off the debt. Only one of her seven children reached 10th grade, and none can find work off the land.

“I may die before I can repay that loan,” she said.

This cycle of debt is a persistent problem, often blamed for periodic spates of farmer suicides, while the high illiteracy rate in the countryside makes it hard for farmers to switch to jobs in India’s services sector.

Before the national elections, the Congress Party announced a plan to forgive certain farm loans. Many farmers can also take part in a government employment program that guarantees 100 days of manual labor for roughly $2 a day.

But the drought has brought renewed pressure. An hour from Pipri Village, farmers recently clamored around a dilapidated branch of the government’s Syndicate Bank. One man came because of the false rumor that farmers were receiving a 1,500-rupee stipend (about $30). Others came looking for loans. “We need the loans to plant the other crops,” one farmer said. “They keep saying to come back next week.”

Before the drought, rural India was helping to buttress the national economy during the global downturn as rural consumption helped drive consumer spending. But parts of that demand were driven by backdated pay increases for millions of government workers. Now the government is subsidizing seeds and diesel fuel to help farmers through the drought, even as some economists worry that subsidies will worsen the federal deficit.

Too often, many analysts say, the government’s response involves such short-term fixes rather than efforts to tackle the structural problems in the rural economy. A study by the International Food Policy Research Institute noted that India spent $25 billion in 2008 on fertilizer subsidies, but only $5 billion on agricultural investment — even though investment yields 10 times more returns.

India, analysts say, must learn to produce more food with less water, even while lifting rural education levels so that farmers can shift to the higher paying jobs at the heart of India’s economic rise.

“We can manage the drought,” said T. Nanda Kumar, secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture. “We have managed earlier droughts. But we need to move some people out of agriculture. I don’t think that a 17 percent share of G.D.P. and a 50 percent share of employment are viable in the long run.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

Appeals Court Says Ex-Detainee Can Sue Ashcroft, Rejects Legal-Immunity Claims - washingtonpost.com

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Former Official's Bid for Immunity In Ex-Detainee's Case Is Rejected

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 5, 2009

A Muslim man who was detained for weeks as a material witness in a terrorism case can sue former attorney general John D. Ashcroft, a federal appeals court in California ruled Friday as it rejected a bid for absolute legal immunity by the onetime Cabinet official.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit gave a green light to the case filed by Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody at a ticket counter at Washington Dulles International Airport in 2003, while he was on his way to Saudi Arabia to study Islamic law and Arabic.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a strategy launched by the Justice Department and the FBI after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Ashcroft, the attorney general at the time, asserted that authorities would take "suspected terrorists off the street" and engage in "aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses" to disrupt possible al-Qaeda plots. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III cited al-Kidd's detention in testimony to Congress about the bureau's success in protecting national security.

Al-Kidd and his attorneys argued that Ashcroft knew or should have known that the material witness statute was being used in a sweeping and abusive manner. Ashcroft, who is being defended by the Justice Department, maintained that the case should be dismissed because he had no personal involvement in al-Kidd's detention. He also argued that as the nation's chief law enforcement officer at the time, he enjoyed broad protection from lawsuits.

But Judges Milan D. Smith Jr. and David R. Thompson disagreed, writing that Ashcroft was not entitled to absolute legal immunity and that authorities had detained al-Kidd in part to conduct an investigation of his activities, without probable cause. Judge Carlos T. Bea wrote a partial dissent. All three judges were appointed by Republican presidents.

Al-Kidd, a Muslim convert who had been a standout running back on the University of Idaho football team, was confined in a high-security cell lit 24 hours a day, according to the opinion. He was strip-searched and transported, in shackles, across three states for 16 days before a court ordered his release. Authorities could not offer evidence of criminal wrongdoing by al-Kidd, and he never testified in a court proceeding.

For more than 15 months after his release, al-Kidd was forced to live with his parents-in-law in Nevada, curtail his travel and report to a probation officer. Al-Kidd lost his job with a government contractor after being denied a security clearance. Since his arrest, he has separated from his wife, suffered emotional trauma and been unable to hold a steady job, the judges wrote.

At the time, authorities said they wanted al-Kidd to testify in connection with a visa fraud case against Sami Omar al-Hussayen. Al-Hussayen ultimately was acquitted of charges that he provided material support to terrorists. Other charges against him were dismissed after a jury failed to reach agreement.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment on the al-Kidd ruling. A spokesman for Ashcroft said, "We will review the decision."

Earlier this year, a district court judge in California allowed a detainee's lawsuit against former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo to go forward. The suit accused Woo of violating the detainee's constitutional rights by drafting memos that blessed harsh interrogation tactics. The case is being appealed.

The Supreme Court in May rejected a case by another detainee, Javaid Iqbal, who was part of a large-scale roundup of Muslim men on immigration charges throughout the United States after the Sept. 11. attacks. Iqbal had tried to sue Ashcroft and Mueller, alleging discrimination on the basis of race and religion, but the high court ruled that he could not produce sufficient evidence tying the government officials to the actions.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said the al-Kidd ruling is "an enormous decision" that could help advocates finally understand how many Muslims were rounded up using material witness warrants.

The court's majority opinion comes as senior officials in the Obama administration and Congress debate whether terrorism suspects can be subject to preventive detentions, without criminal charges, as a national security strategy.

The opinion bemoaned that some "confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions . . . because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant."

Supreme Court to Revisit Election Financing in Potential Landmark Case - washingtonpost.com

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Film About Clinton Opens a Review of Corporate Spending

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 5, 2009

More than 100 years of restrictions on corporate support of political candidates will be at stake next week when the Supreme Court considers whether a quirky case about a film denouncing Hillary Rodham Clinton should lead to a rewrite of the way federal elections are financed.

In an unusual hearing in the midst of their summer recess, the justices will decide whether to move beyond the particulars of "Hillary: The Movie" to more profound questions about the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and how that squares with political spending.

The justices will consider casting aside previous rulings that uphold laws restricting corporate support of political candidates.

The court ruled in 1990 that corporations, because of their "immense aggregations of wealth," possessed a unique ability to drown out the voices of individuals in the nation's political conversation. That precedent was reinforced in 2003 when the court upheld the federal campaign finance law that limits the electoral influence of corporations, unions and special interest groups.

Conservative justices have chafed at the restrictions, especially in the federal legislation commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act. And they have been joined by like-minded colleagues in Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

That the court would overturn a decision made as recently as 2003 has advocates of campaign finance reform erupting about "judicial activism" and speaking in apocalyptic terms.

"It would unleash corporations to use their massive wealth to overwhelm the federal system, with disastrous consequences for the country," said Fred Wertheimer, a longtime campaign finance reformer who now leads Democracy 21, a watchdog group.

He imagines corporations demanding fealty from lawmakers on health-care reform or auto industry bailouts with the promise of millions of dollars for their campaigns -- or the threat of the same amount used to finance a challenger.

Others see the potential for partisan advantage.

"If Republicans were wondering how their 2012 presidential candidate is going to compete against President Obama's $600 million fundraising juggernaut, the Supreme Court seems poised to provide an answer: unlimited corporate spending supporting the Republican candidate, or attacking Obama," Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, wrote for the online magazine Slate.

But Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who has urged the court to overturn the precedents, said that the "sky-is-falling rhetoric of the other side is simply not true."

Smith, a Republican appointee to the commission who is now a law professor at Capital University in Ohio, said there is no evidence that corporations would spend millions of dollars targeting specific lawmakers.

While nearly half the states ban or greatly restrict corporate spending on behalf of candidates -- and could have their laws rendered unconstitutional by the court's decision -- the rest do not, Smith said. States such as California, Texas and Virginia allow corporate spending, without the "predicted catastrophes" advanced by advocates of campaign finance reform, he said.

That the court is considering such a broad challenge to corporate spending is a surprise. The case at hand arises from a conservative group's production of a scathing look at Clinton produced during her run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

A lower court said the film ran afoul of a McCain-Feingold provision that forbids corporations, unions and special interest groups from using money from their general treasuries for "any broadcast, cable or satellite communications" that refer to a candidate for federal office during election season.

In the past, that has meant 30-second to one-minute campaign ads. But the lower court said the same rule applied to Citizens United's 90-minute film about Clinton, which it proposed to broadcast on demand on cable channels.

But during oral arguments in March, conservative justices were more interested in the larger questions of how far government could go to corral corporate spending. Even though the law is specifically about broadcasts, justices asked the government's lawyer whether the ban could include books that endorsed a candidate.

When the deputy solicitor general said that theoretically it could, the justices seemed rattled.

"It's a 500-page book, and at the end it says, 'And so vote for X.' The government could ban that?" Roberts asked.

Instead of deciding the case at the end of the term in June, the court set a special hearing for Sept. 9 to decide whether to overturn its two precedents.

One was the court's 5 to 4 decision in 2003 declaring McCain-Feingold constitutional.

That decision cited the court's 1990 ruling in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, in which it upheld a state law banning corporations from using their profits for ads supporting or opposing candidates. Congress had done the same for corporations and unions in 1947 regarding federal elections, and a ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates dates to 1907 and President Theodore Roosevelt.

The issue has united conservatives and split liberals, who generally support campaign finance restrictions but are torn about the restrictions on political speech.

Noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams is representing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who originally urged the court to strike down McCain-Feingold and has been allowed to intervene in next week's hearing. An association of reporters is also worried that the law's exemption for the news media is either not broad enough to support new forms of expression, or that that law could be changed in the future.

Supporters of McCain-Feingold criticized the justices' move as an abandonment of the court's policy of sticking by its precedents even when its membership has changed. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who provided the necessary vote to find McCain-Feingold constitutional, was replaced by Alito, who is skeptical.

"The court is not supposed to turn on a dime because of a change in justices," said Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission member who advised McCain and supports the legislation.

But Steve Simpson, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, said justices may have become frustrated with trying to balance McCain-Feingold's restrictions on campaign finance with the constitutional guarantee of free speech. "A number of principles are sort of banging into each other here," he said.

There is not much mystery about where the justices stand. Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have said Austin should be overruled, and have been consistent critics of the campaign finance reform act.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer have approved of the restrictions, as did David H. Souter, who recently retired.

This will be the first hearing for Souter's replacement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. But judging from the decisions and speeches she has made about the dangers of campaign contributions, it would be a surprise if she voted differently from Souter.

Roberts and Alito are key. Both have supported every challenge to McCain-Feingold since joining the court, loosening some of the law's restrictions, but so far they have been reluctant to declare prohibitions on corporate spending unconstitutional.

The oral argument is also the first for Solicitor General Elena Kagan. She has warned the court that it should not undermine such a "long-standing and central principle of federal and state campaign finance law" without a more detailed record of what it would mean.

Her counterpart, coincidentally, is a former solicitor general, Theodore B. Olson, whose duty it was in 2003 to defend McCain-Feingold. Now, his brief for Citizens United reinforces the threats of "criminalization" of speech that worried justices at the oral argument:

"When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech, something has gone terribly wrong and it is as sure a sign as any that a return to first principles is in order."

Indonesia Takes Beggars Off Streets of Jakarta in a Holiday Crackdown - NYTimes.com

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By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: September 5, 2009

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Every year during Ramadan, the poor from every corner of the island of Java gravitate here to the capital to beg. They wander in between cars stuck at traffic corners, in the shadows of the city’s skyscrapers and gigantic shopping malls, in the knowledge that Islam’s most sacred month makes people particularly charitable.

This year, however, Jakarta is cracking down on the seasonal influx of beggars. Many of them belong to organized gangs and simply exploit religious sentiments, the authorities say. And they add that the beggars pose a threat to the stability of Jakarta, Indonesia’s most important city and the seat of power, a bubble of five-star hotels and luxury stores that, in the words of one law enforcement official, feeds the outsiders’ “sweet dreams.”

Thirteen days into Ramadan, Jakarta had rounded up 1,465 beggars, most of them women and children, almost all from outside Jakarta. For the first time, the authorities are also going after those caught giving to beggars, though they have fined only 12 people so far.

“A capital is built on the condition that it be a comfortable, safe and dignified place,” said Budiharjo, who took over Jakarta’s Social Welfare Agency eight months ago and decided to penalize charity givers for the first time.

“If we stop giving, naturally they will disappear,” said Mr. Budiharjo, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.

He said investigators found that about 500 of the arrested beggars belonged to groups that gathered Indonesians in villages and bused them to Jakarta to beg during Ramadan. Officials have arrested coordinators of the ring in Jakarta, but were still looking for leaders outside the city, he said.

The authorities were enforcing a 2007 city bylaw that made it illegal not only to beg on city streets, but also to give to street beggars. Violators on both sides can be fined up to $2,000 and jailed for up to two months.

The 12 people caught giving were fined between $15 and $30, Mr. Budiharjo said. All were apprehended while handing out money to beggars from inside their cars, an act as common as the city’s traffic jams.

But the severity of the crackdown, in a developing country with not much of a social safety net, has drawn criticism from some of the local media, as well as those caught in the daily raids against beggars.

“Begging should be allowed,” said Jariyah, 39, who had traveled a couple of hours by bus to beg with her 16-month-old son. “We can ask for assistance from our relatives, but only once or twice. Otherwise, I’d lose my dignity. That’s why I came here.”

Ms. Jariyah, who was being held in a screening center after being arrested, said she had come to Jakarta on her own. She had started begging, she said, because a daughter was entering junior high school and her husband, a day laborer, earned only a couple of dollars a day if he was lucky enough to find work.

The city was trying to steer both the needy and their donors to organized charities, though the number of poor vastly overwhelmed the few national charities.

One of this country’s largest charities, Rumah Zakat, raised $7.1 million last year from individual and corporate donations, mostly in Jakarta. About 40 percent of the gifts came during Ramadan and during the festival of Id al-Adha, another important holiday, said Rachmat Ari Kusamanto, the organization’s chief executive.

Rumah Zakat finances educational and health programs, and lends money to help people start businesses.

“The concept of charity is to empower people, not to make them dependent,” Mr. Rachmat said. “By giving money directly to a person, we are not empowering that person.”

And yet things did not seem so clear-cut at the screening center where some of the beggars were being held along with others picked off Jakarta’s streets. A bus arrived regularly, dropping off people who were then placed in one of 15 categories at the center: beggars, of course, but also unlicensed hawkers and musicians, the mentally ill, prostitutes, transvestites and other fixtures of Jakarta’s streetscape.

According to a large board, 120 beggars were among the 500 people being held at the center. Seventy-five were women, and children made up many of the 45 males. They would stay at the center for up to 21 days, though most were held only a few days before being released or transferred to a rehabilitation center.

Most milled around a large, open courtyard where laundry hung on clotheslines and neighborhood women were selling fried plantains. But most of those caught for begging were inside a large room with carpets on which mothers and children usually lay.

None of the people randomly interviewed said they belonged to begging organizations. The women, many of them nursing infants, said they just needed extra money.

“I didn’t know that begging was illegal,” said Sumilah, 33, who said her husband had deserted her and their three children. “People like us haven’t gone to school.”

Suciardi, the social welfare official in charge of the center, walked around, joking with some of those being detained. A young girl, brought to the center for being a street musician, followed him around.

In his office, Mr. Suciardi said that allowing beggars to operate freely would lead to increased criminality and, eventually, political instability.

“If we allow them here,” he said, “Jakarta will become the center for Indonesia’s poor.”

A deaf and mute teenage boy — who had made the center his home after being picked up in a gutter a decade ago — came inside the office, clearly happy to see Mr. Suciardi. Smiling, he patted Mr. Suciardi’s shirt pockets. Eventually, Mr. Suciardi reached for his wallet inside his pants pocket and handed the boy a 20,000 rupiah bill, or $2.

“We don’t want to be mean to these people,” Mr. Suciardi said. “But national security and safety are at stake.”

VOA News - West Africa Hit by Devastating Floods

By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
05 September 2009

Schlein report - Download (MP3)

Schlein report - Listen (MP3)

View of the flooded streets of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 01 Sep 2009

West Africa is experiencing particularly severe flooding this year, with some 350,000 people affected in six countries. The United Nations reports Burkina Faso is the worst affected. The floods also have spread to Ghana, Niger, Guinea, Senegal and Benin.

UN aid agencies say this year's flooding across West Africa may match the severity of the floods that occurred in 2007. Those killed some 300 people and displaced 800,000.

This year's toll has not reached that level. But the torrential rains have not stopped. They are expected to continue for several more weeks, enough time to add to the already extensive damage that has occurred.

UN Humanitarian spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs says Burkina Faso has been the hardest hit. She says at least five people have been killed and 110,000 forced to flee their homes, mainly in the capital, Ouagadougou.

"The rain in Burkina Faso during one year represents 1,200 millimeters," said Byrs. "In one day in Ouagadougou, the rain represented 300 millimeter for one day."

That means that one-quarter of Burkina Faso's annual rainfall happened in just one day. Byrs says this is extremely worrying as more rain and more flooding is sure to occur. She says the country has not yet recovered from the economic losses suffered in 2007.

Yet now, she says, people once again are faced with extensive crop losses and the loss of cattle from drowning. She says infrastructure has been badly damaged. Electricity in the capital has been cut off. Roads and bridges have been washed away.

"And, all those public buildings," said Byrs. "In particular, the main hospital in Ouagadougou has been flooded and patients have been evacuated these days. You have floods in the corridor. Sixty children who were in this hospital have been evacuated. It is another strain on the economic life of this country."

Concern is rising about an outbreak of water-borne diseases. Diarrhea is already on the rise.

Byrs says Ghana also has been hit hard by, what she calls, the deluge. She says 25 people died from the bad weather and from the floods. She adds the death toll is likely to increase in the coming days.

Trauma of life in one of Brazil's most violent slums - CNN.com

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Story Highlights
Dr. Douglas Khayat describes life in one of Brazil's most violent favelas
Psychologists have so far given 2,000 consultations for traumatized locals
Doctors Without Borders provide the only medical/psychiatric help in the region

By Douglas Khayat
Special to CNN

Douglas Khayat is a psychologist for the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders//Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), working in Complexo do Alemao, one of the poorest and most violent favelas in Rio de Janeiro.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- An estimated 150,000 people live in Complexo do Alemao, where armed groups fight for turf, and fighting between police forces and ruling groups leave thousands of people trapped by violence.

There are no private or public health facilities inside Alemao and not even government ambulances enter. In this extremely violent corner of the world, residents live with a great deal of psychological trauma.

In recognition of this trauma, Doctors Without Borders offers psychological support, in addition to the medical services we provide to the community in the favela.

The people who call Alemao home live under a vow of silence, the unspoken code of survival that dictates that no one discuss what goes on inside the community particularly the violent episodes they endure or witness. Killings, beating, threats, expulsions, regular exposure to heavy weapons, and other forms of abuse, are all carried out by the armed groups that control the drug trafficking, imposing their own set of rules.
See images of life in the favelas »

Since October 2007, Doctors Without Borders psychologists have conducted 2,000 consultations for 1,000 different patients. For 85 percent of patients, suffering was directly related to violence. They have either been directly affected by combat, experienced the trauma of witnessing extreme violence, have had family members killed or tortured.

The symptoms we mostly see are anxiety disorders, depression, psychosomatic conditions, and learning and behavior problems in children. When police enter the area, fighting often breaks out with armed groups. The state of fear created by these groups creates an environment in which psychological disorders multiply. Some get used to living this way, but others do not, particularly children.
See a report on healthcare in Brazil »

The needs are incredible, so are the stories.

Last year a middle-aged man arrived at our project asking to see a psychologist. Two years earlier he suffered a series of tragic events that resulted in persistent insomnia and anxiety that almost ruined his family.

He was crossing a football field holding hands with a female friend, not his wife, when suddenly a armored police car entered the community and began shooting.

Everything happened in a matter of seconds. His girlfriend told him she was wounded. The shooting became so bad that he had to leave her to find shelter. She died and he could not stop blaming himself for leaving her in the middle of the field.

It made his marriage hell. It started to affect his work and he began to have terrible nightmares. He started to drink a lot. But our treatment with him went really well. We helped him reevaluate others facets of his life and things started to get better, his marriage, his work. People around him reacted to his new attitude, and his life began to improve.

The population trusts us because we live the same day-to-day routine they live. Our project is the only health facility inside Complexo do Alemao. During the day, we are exposed to the same environment as the residents. This experience in the same environment helps to develop a bond with our patients.

For me as a Brazilian, as a middle class carioca (from Rio de Janeiro), it is difficult to experience this aspect of my country. I've grown angrier about the conditions in my city and country after doing this work.

At the same time, it has been and continues to be a life changing experience, a possibility to dive into my country's soul and play an important part of people's lives.

Dar Al Hayat - A Libyan message to Morocco

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Sat, 05 September 2009

Mohammad al-Ashab

When Libyan Leader Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi announced that he supports the independence of southern Sudan if its people want to, it was clear that his message goes beyond the Sudanese crisis to the West of North Africa, particularly the issue of Western Sahara, especially since both crises erupted at the same time in the mid-1990s in order to separate the Arab space from its African extension.

Those who are acquainted with Col. Al-Qaddafi realize that he has been keen on giving precedence to the image of the thinking leader over the reality that he is a head of a state who can hit and miss. When a Moroccan court prosecuted some newspapers for criticizing the Libyan leader, the issue was considered closed at this level. On the one hand, this newspaper was unofficial and only reflects the ideas of its publishers. On the other hand, the commitment to principles in the relations among states is not subject to mood swings. It is different when Libya expresses its discontent with some reports published by the Moroccan press, and when Libyan officials go back in time and manipulate the Sahara issue.

It was enough for the Libyan officials to inform the Morocco officials that the leader of the Polisario Front Mohammad Abdelaziz will attend the celebrations of Al-Fateh Revolution in order to avoid any embarrassment. In this case, Morocco's absence would not be more serious that driving it to face a fait accompli. Also, Morocco does not agree to be at the same distance with the Polisario Front, especially since the issue is still on the table of the United Nations.

In its current experience, Libya has replaced resounding slogans with a pragmatic methodology that is closer to understanding the laws of the times. Going backward in dealing with the Sahara issue and southern Sudan just because Libya was displeased with reports published by the press is out of the question. The Libyan role is necessary to help solve the problems of the African continent, not to complicate them. The Libyan Republic might have been forced to deal with the European Union in its current structure, or it might have been exposed to political pressures to ensure a mass rally to mark the 40th anniversary of Al-Fateh Revolution.

However, it realizes that the accession of the "Sahara Republic" to the Organization of the African Unity in 1984 raised political and legal controversies which the efforts of the wise people of African failed to overcome. The evidence is that the Sahara dossier in particular has moved to the corridors of the United Nations, and thus there is still a need for a political solution to the predicament of the African Union, all the more so after many countries suspended their recognition of the "Sahara Republic" and are yearning for a political solution to end the problem.

Likewise, the situation in southern Sudan would not have enjoyed the current dimensions had it not been for the repercussions of the Darfur crisis which put Sudan's unity before the unknown. This can only be faced by consolidating unity and sovereignty in light of respecting ethnic and political pluralism. After all, there are many African and Arab frameworks that can contain the struggle of the brother-enemies in Sudan.

No one wants the relations between Morocco and Libya to deteriorate. Both countries are bound by joint commitments inside the Maghreb Union, which can obviously play a role in encouraging the parties of the Sahara conflict to carry on with negotiations, let alone the fact that its current situation cannot withstand new differences.

It is worth mentioning that while the Maghreb capitals abstain from carrying out any efforts to arrange the appropriate atmosphere for a political solution brokered by the United Nations, international envoy Christopher Ross took the lead and talked with the Maghreb Union Secretariat about the issue. But Col. Al-Qaddafi still heads the current session of the Union, and he had experienced, two years ago, how the Sahara differences reflected negatively on the Maghreb Summit hosted by Tripoli at the time. His position and responsibilities perhaps push him to contemplate over the dreams that fade away of establishing a Maghreb Union, one that is active in its periphery and a partner to its neighbors. The opportunity remains favorable to do something, but not under the circumstances of the protest of the celebration which necessitated the withdrawal of Morocco. And it is not too late!

BBC - Delays hit Aboriginal homes plan

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By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney

A report into an ambitious housing scheme for Australia's Aboriginals has found that not one dwelling has been built in the year since it began.

The A$660m (US$562m; £342m) scheme is designed to address chronic housing problems in Aboriginal communities.

The project aims to construct 750 homes in the Northern Territory and refurbish hundreds of others.

Officials blamed "administration problems" for the delays - which prompted one minister to quit.

The slow pace of this ambitious programme to help Aboriginal families almost brought down the Northern Territory government when a former minister quit in disgust at the lack of progress.

A review has recommended that federal agencies take more control of the scheme and that administration costs be reduced.

“ Our First Australians deserve better than a cubby house or a dog house ”
Nigel Scullion Senator

It has all been an embarrassment to the government of Kevin Rudd in Canberra and his indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, who has insisted that the building work will be completed within budget and on time by 2013.

Critics, though, are not convinced.

Nigel Scullion, a conservative senator for the Northern Territory, says the whole affair has been a disaster.

"The minister has taken absolutely no responsibility for this.

"This was a fundamental of Kevin Rudd's undertaking and promises to indigenous people of Australia and he has failed and it has failed under the leadership of Jenny Macklin.

"And I cannot understand why Mr Rudd would allow her to stay and preside over the second stage of this complete and unmitigated disaster.

"Our First Australians deserve better than a cubby house or a dog house."

The delays mean that the amount of money earmarked for each new dwelling has been cut by 20%.

For generations, poor housing has blighted many Aboriginal communities.

Australia's original inhabitants often suffer squalid and over-cramped living conditions which contribute to the 17-year gap in life expectancy between them and their non-indigenous counterparts.

BBC - New Afghan 'poll frauds' emerge

Image via Wikipedia

Further evidence has come to light of widespread fraud during the recent Afghan presidential election.

One tribal elder has admitted to the BBC that he tampered with hundreds of ballots in favour of incumbent President Hamid Karzai.

More than 600 serious complaints are being investigated, but the deadline for new complaints has now passed.

With 60% of polling stations having already declared, Mr Karzai has a clear lead.

In the latest case of alleged fraud uncovered by the BBC, a tribal elder from Zaziaryoub district - in the eastern province of Paktia - said he had helped to fill in about 900 ballots in favour of President Karzai.

The elder says in a neighbouring village, his nephew saw one man fill in more than 2,000 ballots.

Allegations of fraud have been made against all the prime candidates, but the election process seems to have been working overwhelmingly in favour of Mr Karzai, says the BBC's Chris Morris in Kabul.

However, some of these complaints will not get heard by the Electoral Complaints Commission, as the time to file an official complaint has passed.

The commission is currently looking into 2,000 fraud claims overall.

Figures obtained from the campaign of Hamid Karzai's leading opponent, Dr Abdullah, suggest that in four provinces alone results have been declared from 28 polling stations which observers had reported were closed.

Damning evidence

AFGHAN ELECTION

Vote held on 20 August for presidency and provincial councils

Turnout not made official yet but estimated at 40-50%

More than 400 insurgent attacks on polling day, Nato says

More than 2,000 fraud allegations, 600 deemed serious

Final result expected 17 Sept but fraud allegations must be cleared

Hamid Karzai has clear lead over Abdullah Abdullah in presidency race

Candidate needs more than 50% to avoid runoff

Just days ago, a tribe in the south made the most serious claim so far.

The leader of Kandahar's Bareez tribe said that nearly 30,000 votes were cast fraudulently for President Hamid Karzai instead of primarily for the main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who heads the Kandahar provincial council, called the claims "baseless".

Because of time needed to investigate the fraud allegations, the final results of the election may not be known until the end of September.

There are concerns continuing claims of fraud could undermine the legitimacy of the election, which Afghanistan's Western allies see as crucial in their campaign against the Taliban.

BBC - Leaders axed after China rioting

Image by Remko Tanis via Flickr

A Communist Party leader and police chief in the troubled western Chinese region of Xinjiang have been sacked, the official Xinhua news agency says.

The moves follow days of ethnic unrest in the regional capital Urumqi in which at least five people have died.

No official reason has been given for the sackings.

Mass protests have followed a spate of stabbings with syringes blamed on Uighur Muslim separatists. Unrest in Urumqi in July left nearly 200 dead.

ANALYSIS
Michael Bristow, BBC News, Urumqi It is not entirely unusual for a communist party boss to be sacked in China following an accident, scandal or some kind of crisis. It is one of only a few ways the authorities can show ordinary people that they've taken their feelings into consideration.

But few officials have been sacked quite as publicly as Li Zhi, Urumqi's former party chief. The fact that he has been forced out while this current phase of unrest has yet to subside, reveals just how serious the situation is here.

It also shows how desperate the country's national leaders are to persuade Urumqi's Han Chinese population to calm down. But this sacking might not appease them: the protesters had called for Mr Li to step down, but many also want to see the back of Xinjiang's party boss, Wang Lequan.

Xinhua first announced that Urumqi Communist Party chief Li Zhi was to be replaced by Zhu Hailun, the head of Xinjiang region's law-and-order committee.

A later statement added that Liu Yaohua, director of the Xinjiang Autonomous Regional Public Security Department, had also been dismissed.

Correspondents say that protesters who have marched in their thousands through Urumqi in recent days have demanded Mr Li's dismissal for failing to provide public safety.

The BBC's Michael Bristow in Urumqi says the sacking is unusual as it shows the Chinese authorities believe they may have made mistakes in the handling of the unrest.

Tight security

Security in Urumqi has been tight this week, after thousands of Han Chinese demonstrated over the alleged hypodermic syringe stabbings.

In fresh unrest on Saturday, angry Han Chinese rushed to the city's main square following reports that three Uighur men had attacked a child with needles.

Video of the incident showed police driving the boy away and the crowd being dispersed.

China's top security official, Meng Jianzhu, arrived in the city on Friday to try to restore order.

He was quoted by Xinhua as saying the syringe attacks were a continuation of the July unrest in which 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - were killed in ethnic riots.

Xinjiang's population is evenly split between Uighurs and Han Chinese - the country's majority ethnic group. But Hans make up three-quarters of Urumqi's population.

Tension between the Uighur and Han communities has been simmering for many years, but July's ethnic unrest was the worst for decades.

It began when crowds of Uighurs took the streets to protest about mistreatment - but their rally spiralled out of control and days of violent clashes followed.

Sep 4, 2009

Review of "Half the Sky," on the oppression of women - Harvard Magazine September-October 2009

Coming to terms with oppression

by Rohini Pande

Nicholas D. Kristof ’82 and Sheryl WuDunn, M.B.A. ’86, Half the Sky (Knopf, $27.95)

If a woman earns more than her husband, it’s difficult for him to discipline her.

Sharifa Bibi, Pakistan

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning husband-and-wife journalists Nicholas D. Kristof ’82 and Sheryl WuDunn, M.B.A. ’86, is more than just journalism. It’s a tract that’s unashamedly intended to outline a problem and convince its readers to take action to solve it.

The book—a series of essays and anecdotes that work together—forms an argument in two parts. The first part argues that the oppression of women in (mostly) developing countries is a devastating and under-recognized injustice that’s the equivalent of slavery, and that demands a moral and political movement as focused and principled as the campaign against slavery to bring it to an end. The second discusses practical ways to create this movement and effect the change that’s needed.

Kristof, a New York Times columnist, and WuDunn, a former Times foreign correspondent who now works independently on multimedia projects involving women’s issues, make their first case effectively, drawing on their years of research (and it’s clear they know the subject and its complexities very well). They tell how women are promised work, then sold into sexual slavery and imprisonment, while authorities turn a blind eye. They tell how these women are beaten, and raped, and drugged if they try to resist the men who have bought them; how many contract AIDS from forced sex work without protection, and die in their twenties; and how returning them to families and normal life is complicated by shame and addiction. They tell how in some cultures it’s accepted practice for a man to rape the woman he wants to marry to force her to submit to him, and how in others it’s common for rape to be used as a weapon by criminals, or in family feuds—the perpetrators secure in the knowledge that shame will prevent the victim from reporting the attack to the authorities (and will often result in the victim’s suicide). They describe how families and states fail to invest in education and healthcare for women, so that girls who could be an economic asset to their families and country instead end up controlled by and dependent on male relatives, undernourished and often dead at a young age from preventable diseases, or African women who suffer fistulas in childbirth (a painful, embarrassing condition, but curable by a simple operation) are abandoned to die on the edges of villages. They describe how some traditions that may be seen as oppressive, and are at least very dangerous to women’s health, like genital cutting, can become so ingrained in a culture that women themselves support them.

The authors make their argument through a combination of statistics and some truly horrifying stories of individuals they’ve met who have been subjected to this kind of oppression—such as 14-year-old Mahabouba Muhammad, from Ethiopia. Mahabouba was abandoned by her parents, then sold into marriage by a neighbor. She found herself a virtual prisoner, raped by her “husband” and constantly beaten by his first wife. She became pregnant and ran away, but—as a pregnant and “married” woman—no relatives would help her and she was left to give birth alone. By the time help finally arrived, she had suffered obstructed labor (the baby died inside her) and internal injuries that left her doubly incontinent and unable to walk. Her relatives, fearing she was cursed, left her alone in a hut after removing the door, hoping hyenas would kill her. Only her indomitable will to live, and the fortuitous presence of a Western missionary in a nearby village, allowed her to survive.

The second part of the authors’ argument—practical ways to aid women—is sometimes on shakier ground. But this is mostly due to their honesty about the complexity of the problems faced by those who try to come from outside to fight the oppression of women in places where it’s deeply ingrained: “‘This is our culture!’ a Sudanese midwife declared angrily when we asked about cutting. ‘We all want it. Why is it America’s business?’”

They describe their own attempts to buy prostitutes out of slavery, and the social conditions that make restoring these women to a normal life so difficult. They tell of an attempt to help a woman dying in childbirth in an African hospital, and the institutional, social, and financial problems that foiled that effort. They discuss how their initial support for legalization of prostitution was undercut by the more sordid reality they discovered behind the apparent success of just such a legal zone in India (in Kolkata), and examine how legalization of prostitution in the Netherlands compares as an anti-trafficking technique with the criminalization of sex-service purchases in Sweden. They point out how the campaign against female circumcision has been set back by the campaigners’ use of terminology (“female genital mutilation”) that turned the people they wanted to help against them. They point out over and over the inadequacies of the law—and of those who are supposed to enforce it—in the face of tradition and silence and public indifference.

This question of legality fits the anti-slavery analogy less well. Slavery was legal, and the abolitionists focused on arguing that it should become illegal. Once it was illegal, the trade stopped. Nowhere in the world are rape (outside of marriage), or enforced sexual slavery actually legal. The problem—and several of the stories the authors relate make this very clear—is the indifference or corruption of the authorities, and the silence of the victim, who would be subject to public humiliation were she to admit to her ordeal. Similarly, the denial of schooling or medical care often reflects families’ ignorance of the earning potential of healthy, educated women.

Given their understandable suspicion of the effectiveness of corrupt and conservative authorities in fighting injustice, and their equally understandable discomfort with attempts by outsiders to impose change in places they don’t fully understand, much of Kristof and WuDunn’s proposed solution to the problem involves supporting individuals they call “social entrepreneurs.”

They tell the story of Mukhtar Mai, in Pakistan, who was gang-raped and expected to commit suicide—but protested, instead. With the compensation she eventually received, she started her own school and social-welfare organizations and then started to speak out nationally and internationally against endemic violence against women in the country—often in a risky conflict with Pervez Musharraf’s government, which didn’t want its reputation sullied abroad. They write about Usha Narayane, who fought back against the gangsters who used rape to control her slum neighbourhood in India; Sunitha Krishnan, a literacy worker whose experience of rape at the hands of a group of men who objected to her organizing women in their village led her to found a group dedicated to opposing trafficking; and Edna Adan, who, against all odds, built a modern maternity hospital in Somaliland.

Kristof and WuDunn stress the importance of individuals speaking up and resisting—but it’s here that their proposals (or, at least, their exhortations) seem questionable. Mukhtar Mai, Usha Narayane, and Sunitha Krishnan are clearly remarkable women, and deserve every support, but it is also true that they are very rare, brave, and driven individuals—and lucky, because their work clearly carries a very high risk. In a society where all the power is elsewhere, resisting is very likely to end in defeat and quite possibly death. Even though the authors themselves, relatively affluent Westerners, clearly do not lead a safe life (there’s a very casual reference to Kristof’s involvement in a plane crash in the Congo), it still seems that it’s no one’s place to push others to take such risks. It’s not enough to rely on a few brave individuals being prepared to fight for change.

The authors are more convincing when they make a case for improving education for women, and for other initiatives (often local and small-scale) that empower women financially. Women who are well-educated and who have an independent income naturally find a voice in the family and in democratic society. They gain the power to speak out and resist the injustice they see around them, or are suffering themselves.

As the authors note, this is also consonant with the growing evidence suggesting that empowering women as political leaders alters policy, often in ways that empower other women. In my research, I have found that voters, especially male, are willing to alter their beliefs about women’s role in society when they see women leaders and, importantly, are then more likely to vote for women. I have also found that voter-information campaigns are effective in altering how slum dwellers in India vote—suggesting that the power of the ballot can potentially be harnessed to enable local action for women’s rights.

Kristof and WuDunn conclude by exhorting readers to take action. In an earlier chapter, the authors mention that stories about individuals are much more effective in promoting action than statistics. They might have more confidence in the stories they tell. The exhortation feels unnecessary, and perhaps even patronizing. The case for change has already been made—and some of the actions they suggest to casual readers, such as signing up for e-mail updates from www.womensnews.org and www.worldpulse.com, or volunteering in the developing world, sometimes feel more like an attempt at moral improvement of Westerners than effective ways to bring about change elsewhere.

Over and over, the narratives make the same point: the problem here is the invisibility of the oppression, the silence and powerlessness of the humiliated and the uneducated, the indifference of the unknowing world. It becomes clear that the answer is to bring what is hidden into the light—whether it’s oppression or neglect of individuals or groups, or the corruption of authorities—and to make it matter. That may be achieved by publicly supporting the brave individuals who speak out, and organize, and resist; or by working to give other women the economic status and education to be able to speak out without risk, to ensure for themselves that laws are enforced and women are treated with respect. It may also be achieved by using our positions as citizens of a rich and powerful country with relative freedom of speech to speak truths and make moral arguments that others don’t have the influence to make or freedom to say. In this book, Kristof and WuDunn have done exactly that.

Rohini Pande is Kamal professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on the economic analysis of the politics and consequences of different forms of redistribution, principally in developing countries. She has examined the role of microfinance in enhancing social capital among women in India, as well as the role of gender quotas in politics in changing voter perceptions. She is now examining the role of information in enabling slum dwellers to hold politicians accountable (see www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rohini-pande).