Rebels in the Central African Republic have apparently seized power there. According to the BBC, the rebels now control the capital city of Bangui, and CAR president Ange-Felix Patasse was forced to seek refuge in Cameroon after his plane was shot at while he was attempting to return from a conference in Niger.
Day: March 16, 2003
New Nairobi Government Minister Starts Cutting ‘Ghost’ Workers
Local Government Minister Karissa Maitha, has been tackling corruption and fraud in the headcounts of Nairobi City Council workers — thousands of people draw salaries as government workers even though they don’t actually perform any work for the city.
Recently, Maitha ordered every council worker to show up at Nairobi City Stadium with a copy of an appointment letter, council identification card, and their National Identity Card to prove that they are legitimate employees.
Although there are officially more than 21,000 employees on the Nairobi payroll, Maitha said that his initial counts suggest that the number of legitimate workers is only in the 15,000 to 17,000 range.
Maitha’s efforts are part of incoming president Mwai Kibaki’s promise to fix the endemic corruption in Kenya that former president Daniel arap Moi allowed to flourish. Maitha said that he had received death threats for his trouble,
Those who have been milking the council of millions of shillings have even threatened to kill me and the new City Treasurer George Wambua for closing their taps. But I’ve never been a coward in my life; so my war on corruption in local authorities will continue.
Source:
Headcount reveals Nairobi scam. The BBC, March 11, 2003.
UNICEF Appeals for Aid for North Korea
Mehr Khan, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Director, has issued an appeal for international aid to provide help to millions of women and children in North Korea.
Kahn noted that conditions in North Korea had improved somewhat thanks to previous international aid efforts. But, she continued,
However, there are still some 15 million vulnerable women and children who continue to need external assistance to survive and grow. For example, there are 70,000 children under 7 years old who need hospital-based treatment for malnutrition. The survey also showed that one-third of mothers are malnourished and anaemic.
. . .
The two major causes of child deaths in DPRK are diarrhea and pneumonia. DPRK is a highly urbanized country and, in the early 1990s, people had good access to clean drinking water and sanitation. These facilities are now rapidly breaking down and are in desperate need of overhaul and repair. This gives rise to considerable concern for children’s health.
Since early this year, there has been a dramatic drop in levels of funding available for humanitarian assistance to DPRK. The WFP is in urgent need of funding to meet its food requirements. Some contributions have been authorized recently. But there is still a likely shortfall of 250,000 tonnes of food, which will occur mid-year, and for which there is nothing in the pipeline.
Of course, some nations who came through with aid during previous requests may be rethinking their decisions since North Korea seems to place more importance on restarting its nuclear weapons program that providing food and medicine to its people. Certainly North Korea has been a humanitarian nightmare for years and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. But what possible incentive do donor nations have to underwrite North Korea’s aggressive military posture by taking over the nation’s responsibility to feed its people?
Source:
Lack of funding for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea endangering children. UNICEF, Press Release, March 11, 2003.
Home Office Investigation Clears Cambridge University Laboratory of Wrongdoing
Last May, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection released video footage that it claimed showed monkeys at a Cambridge University laboratory being abused by their caretakers who were not reporting the level of suffering actually experienced by the animals (see this story for background).
In February the UK Home Office released the results of its investigation which concluded that the primate laboratory was well managed and that there was no evidence of abuse nor any evidence that there was any sort of withholding of information by animal researchers or caretakers at Cambridge University.
According to the Home Office report (full report – PDF), the Cambridge University researchers did not cause any more suffering than was necessary to carry out their research on brain disorders such as amnesia, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease and that, moreover, the primate facility,
. . . meets, and in some respects exceeds the standards of housing and care set out in the relevant Home Office Codes of Practice, and that some examples of best practice are to be found there.
BUAV, meanwhile, condemned the report saying it was,
. . . utterly appalled and deeply angered by the complete dismissal of overwhelming evidence of animal suffering.
But the report noted numerous problems with BUAV’s videotapes,
The campaign videotape includes covert recordings of animals in the immediate and early-postoperative periods. The condition of the animals shown reflects a combination of the early effects of the surgery and anaesthesia, and the post-operative medication given. The surgical incisions shown reflect the extent of the surgical exposure required rather than the magnitude of the surgical procedure performed.
In some cases, BUAV outright distorted issues that laboratory personnel themselves had raised. Again, from the Home Office report on BUAV’s claim about overcrowding at the primate facility,
The BUAV report makes mention of stocking levels reaching “critical points” during 1999/2000 and needing to be resolved with “with [sic] some urgency.” Contemporary records confirm that the issue under consideration was how to manage breeding performance and available animal accommodation in order to remain in compliance rather than to deal with stocking levels that had resulted in non-compliance [as the BUAV report clearly implied].
Similarly, BUAV’s claims about other aspects of animal welfare don’t hold up under scrutiny. In its report, for example, BUAV claimed that “Common problems with primate groups include fighting injuries and bacterial and viral infections . . .” But according to the Home Office report,
The BUAV report suggests that animal health and welfare problems are commonplace in the animals bred, kept and used in the Cambridge facility. The specifics discussed include fight-related injuries, diarrhea, respiratory tract infections and dental abscesses.
. . . bearing in mind that the unit houses over 400 animals at anyone time, recorded injuries from fighting are uncommon. In 1999 there were two unequivocal confirmed cases of fight-related injuries, and a further five minor injuries where fighting may have played a part. In 2000 there were no confirmed cases, and only four minor other injuries where fighting may have played a part. In 2001 there were two confirmed fight-related injuries, and three other minor injuries where fighting may have played a part.
Diarrhea occurs occasionally. It is generally mild and sporadic, and seldom lasts for more than one day. Cultures are taken from all animals believed to have an infective disorder. Only one Salmonella infection has been recorded since May 1999.
Infective respiratory problems, that is significant upper respiratory tract infections and/or pneumonia, are uncommon and sporadic. Transmission is generally restricted to cage mates. These conditions are not endemic within the colony. Contemporary documents record five cases in 2000, and nine cases in 2001, again at times when the facility housed over 400 animals. The BUAV report describes an outbreak of pneumonia caused by Bordtella bronchispetica affecting five members of one family group in 2001. Rather than illustrating a chronic, widespread or endemic problem, the outbreak discussed in the BUAV report accounted for more than half of the respiratory tract infections recorded in 2001.
More proof that you simply can’t take animal rights-produced videos and still photos at face value. BUAV, for its part, seemed more interested in creating video footage for its own purposes than actually helping to stop alleged animal abuse at the Cambridge University laboratory. For example, consider this odd statement from the Home Office report,
Cambridge University co-operated fully with this review.
The Home Office invite BUAV to provide the evidence on which their concerns are based, and to allow their investigator to be interviewed for the purposes of this review. BUAV declined.
How predictable.
Sources:
Monkey research cleared by report. Roger Highfield, The Daily Telegraph, February 12, 2003.
Aspects of Non-human Primate Research at Cambridge University: A Review by the Chief Inspector. UK Home Office, October 2002.