Month: April 2005

Botswana Demonstrate Just How Democratic It Is

Botswana is generally considered one of the more democratic African nations. Now if you’re a generally democratic nation how do you go about demonstrating your devotion to democratic principles? Well, of course you try to deport a college professor critical of your country.

In February, Botswana President Festus Mogae declared University of Botswana lecturer Kenneth Good to be an “prohibited immigrant” and ordered him deported to his native Australia. Good is being allowed to remain in Botswana while he appeals the deportation order.

The irony here is what Good said that set Mogae off. Good gave a lecture in which he claimed that rather than being democratic, Botswana is run by a secret elite with a few people making all of the decisions. Specifically, he alleged that presidential succession in Botswana is managed by backdoor wheeling and dealing. Obviously having the president initiate a deportation order against Good really disproved that!

Good, for his part, has a habit of being booted out of African countries. According to Reuters, the minority white government of what was then called Rhodesia also deported him in 1973 after he criticized government policies.

Sources:

Prof. Good Allowed to Stay in Botswana Until Deportation Case is Discussed. Network for Education and Academic Rights, March 7, 2005.

Botswana lecturer wins reprieve. The BBC, February 28, 2005.

U.S. Asserts that Beijing Declaration Didn’t Create Right to Abortion

The United States angered abortion supporters when it filed two amendments at a ten-year review of the 1995 Beijing declaration insisting that the declaration did not create a right to abortion.

The Beijing declaration is a 150-page statement calling for an improvement in the condition of women worldwide, in areas as diverse as education, health care, politics and, of course, sexuality.

Efforts were made at the time to explicitly refer to abortion as a right in the declaration, but these were rejected by governments that have restrictive polices on abortion. The United States, under President Bill Clinton, supported efforts to declare abortion a right. Instead the declaration mad generic statements such as asserting that nations should,

Ensure equal access to and equal treatment of women and men in education and health care and enhance women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as education

It also asserts that women have the right to,

. . . decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality . . . free of coercion, discrimination and violence.

At this year’s meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women, the United States submitted an amendment it wanted added to any reaffirmation of the Beijing Declaration. The amendments would have added language that declared that “while reaffirming [the Beijing Declaration] that they do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion”

The amendments met with strong opposition, and for awhile bogged down the reaffirmation process. Eventually, however, the United States withdrew its amendments. The U.S. representative on the Committee, Ellen Sauerbrey, delivered a statement to the committee from Condoleeza Rice which read, in part,

As colleagues in this meeting know, the United States has had concerns about efforts to mischaracterize the outcome documents of Beijing and Beijing+5 in creation of new international rights. It is clear that there was no intent on the part of States supporting the Beijing documents to create new rights. While those documents express important political goals, they do not create rights or legally binding obligations on States under international law, including the right to abortion. The United States recognizes the International Conference on Population and Development principle that abortion policies are a matter of national sovereignty. And, we are pleased that so many other governments have indicated their agreement with this position, and we anticipate that we can now focus clearly on addressing the many urgent needs of women around the world.

Apparently the United States concluded it got what it wanted by making it clear that by reaffirming the Beijing Declaration it was not affirming any sort of right to abortion.

Sources:

U.S. Pushes U.N. on Abortion Declaration. Associated Press, March 28, 2005.

US sparks row at UN over abortion. The BBC, February 28, 2005.

Women?s Leaders Welcome U.S. Decision To Rejoin Global Consensus for Women?s Human Rights. PlanetWire.Org, March 4, 2005.

Statement by the United States Representative to the Commission on the Status of Women. Press Release, United States Mission to the United Nations, March 2, 2005.

Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing Declaration. 1995.

How Not to Advocate for Domestic Violence Victims

Lynn Giovanni, 45, apparently had a very unhappy divorce and an even unhappier experience with the legal system. In 2004, using the pseudonym Faith Hope, she wrote a self-published book, Comprehensive Study of Judicial System Loopholes in Relation to Domestic Violence: The Victim’s/Child’s and Society’s Nightmare . . . from a Victim’s Perspective.

The book apparently slams the legal system for failing the victims of domestic violence.

Giovanni apparently didn’t take the message in her own book to heart. In early February, she took a hammer and a shovel, and walked into the room of her 14-year-old daughter, Nicole. While Nicole slept, Giovanni hit her skull several times with the hammer and then once with the shovel for good measure.

Giovanni then fled the scene and attempted to commit suicide with her vehicle, but survived crashing her car into a guard rail near a high exit.

Giovanni is now charged with murder, and hopefully will get a firsthand look at how the courts should handle domestic violence.

Source:

Slain by Mom. Perry Chiarmonte and Leonard Greene, New York Post, February 8, 2005.

Is Arab World Ignoring HIV/AIDS Risk to Women?

At a UNAids meeting held in Amman, Jordan, UNAids Associate Director Dr. Suman Mehta warned that Middle Eastern and North African countries are not doing enough to address HIV/AIDS among girls and women.

Mehta charged that Middle Eastern nations are not accurately disclosing the extent of HIV/AIDS infection in their countries. According to Mehta,

It is not a question of resources and funds, it is a political and social problem … officials are not revealing the extent of the problem, and the community does not talk openly about it.

. . .

Low prevalence in the region should not be an excuse for inaction… all countries start with a low prevalence but then it grows out of proportion.

There are currently an estimated 540,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa, but Mehta noted there is still a strong social stigma to HIV/AIDS infection,

[That] not a single one [girl or woman] is coming forward to say ‘I am HIV-positive’ says something about the fear, the scare, the discrimination and stigma attached to AIDS.

Dr. Hind Khattab, an Egyptian public health specialist, echoed Mehta’s words, telling the BBC,

The most important thing to do is not to wait until we are in a dangerous situation and then do something. This is the right time and we have to say that our women are vulnerable — not only those who [behave riskily] or those who are the spouses of men who have risky behavior, but we are in a situation where many of our countries are [at] war or are being attacked and the women are really at risk.

Sources:

Aids threat grows for Arab women. Dale Gavlak, The BBC, February 23, 2005.

Meeting addresses social attitudes to HIV/AIDS. Jordan Information Center, February 2005

Stem Cell Advance . . . For Breast Implants

In February, researchers at the University of Illinois told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that they had made progress turning stem cells into “natural” breast implants.

Jerry Mao of the University of Illinois said his group took stem cells that would normally turn into fatty tissue and grew them on a special scaffolding to shape the resulting tissue. His team then implanted the tissue grown from the stem cells into mice where they retained their size and shapes during the four weeks of the project.

Such a technology could one day replace silicone and saline-based implants and be both safer than those technologies as well as possibly retain their size and shape longer. In addition, this sort of technique could be used to grow tissues for all sorts of reconstructive and cosmetic surgery.

Still, there are a lot of unanswered questions that need to be answered, such as how the tissue grown from stem cells would interact with other tissue in the body and whether special growth factors might be needed to have the implant grow within the body (the idea being to implant the stem cells and scaffolding, have the stem cells grow to the size and shape they’re supposed to and then have the scaffolding gradually disintegrate).

Still, Mao told New Scientist that stem-cell based breast implants could be commercially viable within a decade.

Source:

‘Natural’ breast implant advance. The BBC, Michelle Roberts, February 17, 2005.

Stem cells turn into breast implants. Will Knight, New Scientist, February 18, 2005.

China Launches Another Crackdown on Internet Cafes

Toward the end of 2004, China launched another crackdown against Internet cafes in that country, closing almost 13,000 of them that were operating “illegally.”

China sets out strict guidelines for Internet cafes, limiting the types of computer games and content that can be accessed, and requiring strict identity checks and the keeping of automated logs to track the activities of people while they are accessing the Internet at one of the cafes. Those log files are then sent to China’s Public Security Bureau.

This latest crackdown was apparently motivated by concerns that children were spending time playing violent videogames rather than attending class, but it also has the added effect of furthering the Chinese governments control over its citizens access to information the government does not approve of.

Sources:

China net cafe culture crackdown. The BBC, February 14, 2005.

‘Wangba’ crusade. Red Herring, February 17, 2005.