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Monday, March 03, 2008

Time To Demilitarize US Policy in Africa

From an article on American foreign policy in Africa by Bruce Dixon in Black Agenda Report -"the journal of African-American political thought and action " . It makes some pertinent points but unfortunately ends up with an appeal for an "ethical" American policy - as if capitalism can ever be morally good...More

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Poor Health in Sierra Leone

The BBC has been carrying a series of reports from a medical clinic in Sierra Leone and it makes dire reading . Needless to say , poverty as both a cause of illness and a problem in providing health -care is highlighted but no more so than in its latest instalment .

"The biggest emergency ...has been a possible case of pre-eclampsia - a condition where the pregnant woman has high blood pressure and swells up. It may kill both the baby and the mother. We knew she might have pre-eclampsia and that she needed to go to the hospital as quickly as possible. We called her relatives and told them that they must take her to the hospital - fast. First they pleaded with us, saying, "Please let her stay. She will make it... she can deliver here." They were worried about possible medical fees at the hospital..."
...More

Friday, February 29, 2008

Still in Chains

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

"They never freed us. They only took the chain from around our neck and put it on our ankles." Anti-aparthied activist Rassool Snyman to Naomi Klein.

The fight against the system of racial segregation and white supremacy called apartheid ("apartness" in Afrikaans) was one of the great liberal and left-wing causes of my generation. It was a fight not only for political democracy in South Africa but also for socio-economic reform.The Freedom Charter, adopted by the African National Congress in 1955 (http://www.anc.org.za/), called for "restoring national wealth to the people" (understood as nationalization of the mines, banks and "monopoly industry"), "re-dividing the land among those who work it to banish famine and land hunger," improved pay and working conditions, free healthcare, universal literacy, and decent housing for all.....More

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

SITUATIONS VACANT

"Ireland, a country that used to export its Catholic clergy around the world, is running out of priests at such a rate that their numbers will have dropped by two thirds in the next 20 years, leaving parishes up and down the land vacant. ...One hundred and sixty priests died last year but only nine were ordained. Figures for nuns were even more dramatic, with the deaths of 228 nuns and only two taking final vows for service in religious life." (Times, 27 February) RD

WHEN RELIGION RULES

"Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca. The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported. They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The Mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism. Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine's Day. The ban is partly because of the connection with a "pagan Christian holiday", and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom." (BBC News, 23 February) RD

SCIENCE AND THE VATICAN

Professor Stephen Hawkings: "At a conference on cosmology at the Vatican, the Pope told the delegates that it was OK to study the universe after it began; however, they should not enquire into the beginning itself, because that was the moment of creation and the work of God. I was glad he didn't realise I had already presented a paper at the conference investigating precisely that issue: I didn't fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo." (Daily Telegraph, 26 February) RD

DID THE EARTH MOVE FOR YOU?

"An Israeli lawmaker said Wednesday that several earthquakes felt in Israel recently were a consequence of gays and the parliament's acceptance of them. Shlomo Benizri of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the way to stop the tremors was for parliament to reverse its trend of liberalizing laws concerning homosexuals. Two quakes originating in neighbouring Lebanon shook much of Israel last week, the first coming two days after Israel's attorney general ruled that same-sex couples could adopt children. ..."Why do earthquakes happen? One of the reasons is the things to which the Knesset (parliament) gives legitimacy, to sodomy," Benizri said during a parliamentary debate on earthquake preparedness. A cost-effective way of averting earthquake damage, he added, would be to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes." (Time, 21 February) RD

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