Our nation celebrates mothers on May 10th. Amidst the joy that we will share with our loved ones sits the reality that too many women and children in certain parts of our planet face the cruel, unrelenting challenges posed by malaria.
Without question, malaria’s pain extends far and wide, infecting one quarter of one billion people each year and taking nearly one million lives on an annual basis. Africa not only suffers 90 percent of the world’s malaria-related fatalities, but, as a consequence of its high disease burden, loses billions of dollars in economic productivity, ensnaring generations in a vicious cycle of poverty.
Malaria truly moves without a conscience, devastating young and old, male and female, leaving everyone in endemic regions at risk. On Mother’s Day, though, the unique burden shouldered by women enters into sharper and sadder focus.
The disease strikes infants, children under five and pregnant women in astonishing disproportion, as these segments of the population account for 90 percent of malaria deaths. Given the dual role of women as both victim and primary protector of victims, malaria clearly belongs under the umbrella of traditional women’s health issues. It deserves particular attention as a priority in maternal health, which the World Health Organization defines as pregnancy, childbirth and the six-week postpartum period.
Poor health and even death stalk the early stages of motherhood in Africa, where one-in-five newborns will not reach their fifth birthdays. Mothers confront an endless series of menaces, from malnutrition to dehydration, but nothing raises a fiercer specter to the well-being of their children than malaria. Those children who manage to survive the disease often face lifelong hardships, as malaria depletes nutrients at an early age essential to the development of their brains and bodies.
Maternal health, in particular, endures the ravages of the disease. Pregnancy in Africa carries an inherent risk for mothers, too frequently resulting in maternal fatality. The contraction of malaria by a pregnant woman only elevates the danger she will encounter. Those pregnant women afflicted by the disease deal with a greater chance of delivering low-birth-weight babies, a major cause of infant mortality.
On this Mother’s Day, as some families rejoice, others grapple with the dispiriting consequences of an existence marred by malaria; however, on this Mother’s Day, signs of hope appear.
We draw hope from the knowledge that we can prevent deaths from malaria among women and children through the application of proven interventions, especially by having them sleep under a long-lasting insecticidal mosquito net (LLIN).
We see hope in the collective global will and resources we have harnessed to turn the tide against malaria, including over $3 billion in funding, the commitment to cover all those at risk with lifesaving interventions by December 2010 and the declaration that we will end deaths from the disease by 2015.
We discover hope in the data revealing that LLINs now have been distributed to more than 45 percent of the population in endemic African nations and that 140 million LLINs have been distributed over the past three years, offering protection to nearly 300 million people.
We find hope in the efforts of the United Kingdom’s Sarah Brown, who has brought to the issue of maternal health unparalleled attention and transformative action. Her understanding of the link between malaria and maternal mortality promises to yield dramatic results not only in the malaria sphere, but across the entire landscape of sub-Saharan Africa.
On this Mother’s Day, when we express our most profound appreciation of the women who gave us life, we glimpse a future where malaria no longer denies so many mothers the happiness, gratitude and fulfillment they so richly deserve.
source:huffingtonpost
“NO one knows what we look like,” said Biz Stone, a 35-year-old college dropout who’s dressed like a high-school student, in a shapeless black T-shirt, jeans and high tops, and is one of the three co-founders of Twitter. “So no one treats us like celebrities.”
Evan Williams, 37, also a Twitter founder, seemed astounded by the venture’s success. Referring to his sister, who works as a waitress, he said: “A customer asked, ‘Can you explain this Twitter thing?’ If she said, ‘My brother is the C.E.O.,’ no one would believe her.”
Mr. Stone weighed in. “They’d say, ‘Why do they need a C.E.O. at Twitter? To tell people, Oops, your tweet went over 140 characters?’ “
Twitter is the public’s latest fascination. Mr. Stone and Mr. Williams made Time magazine’s new list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
But Twitter has come under fire. The company doesn’t make much money. People complain that the service is trivial and solipsistic. Asked about the criticism, Mr. Stone smiled and said, “That’s like people saying, ‘Why would I ever carry a phone around when I have one in my kitchen?’ “
Seated with friends on a recent Thursday night at Millennium, a vegan restaurant in San Francisco, Mr. Stone and Mr. Williams are hardly nonchalant about Twitter’s popularity. In February 2009, the site, which is free, expanded at a rate of 1,382 percent; since Oprah joined on April 17, traffic to Twitter has jumped 43 percent.
“Sometimes we think this is an elaborate edition of ‘Punked,’ ” Mr. Stone said, “where someone is going to pop out of the closet and say, ‘Ha, ha, we nailed you guys.’ It’s like we’re on a rocket ship that we were just painting and suddenly it took off and we’re holding on to the ship with our fingernails.”
Mr. Williams nodded. “Every day, one of us says something like: ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. The moon called and they want us to own them.’ “
Mr. Williams ordered an appetizer of sesame-cornmeal-crusted oyster mushrooms for those around the table, who included his wife, Sara, and Kevin Rose, the co-founder of Digg.com, and the talk turned to childhood inventions. Mr. Stone recalled trying to make an oxygen tank, using two empty Coke bottles and a plastic tube, that would allow him to breathe underwater. Mr. Evans admitted to even loftier super-human aspirations: he wanted to fly and tried to make wings. Out of what? Plywood. Mr. Stone rolled his eyes. “Oh,” he said facetiously. “That’s the light wood.”
Mr. Stone and Mr. Rose tweeted throughout the evening (”having a good vegan dinner with @ev and @biz and @others,” Mr. Rose wrote at Millennium). Afterward the group went to Bourbon & Branch, where they sat in a circle in an upstairs alcove, their faces lighted by the screens of their iPhones. “At bourbon and branch with an interesting bunch,” Mr. Stone tweeted.
Mr. Williams looked at him and said, “You write boring tweets.”
Mr. Stone did not appear upset. “I don’t know what to say,” he replied.
The impact, when it comes, will be widespread and inflict massive suffering on other countries and territories as well, such as Bangladesh, China and Tibet. Greenpeace estimates that Himalayan glaciers, called the ‘third pole’ by some on account of the massive reserves they hold, are the primary source of water for one-sixth of the world’s population. If they cease to exist, agriculture – the backbone of South Asian economies – could take a hit from which it may never recover. The result: acute food shortages, loss of livelihood and, ultimately, internal or transnational conflict.
The ranks of ‘climate refugees’ will grow exponentially and further burden the already dilapidated infrastructure of towns and cities across the region. This is not some doomsday scenario concocted by the radical fringe of the environmental movement. Science supports this view. If the current rate of global warming is not arrested forthwith, drought and famine of unprecedented proportions will be seen within the lifetime of the generation now in its infancy. Water wars will indeed take place if climate change continues apace. People will die in the fight over resources.
It is estimated that Himalayan glaciers are receding by 30 to 50 metres a year. In another 50 years they could be gone altogether. If current trends persist, there will be an over-abundance of water at first and possibly an increased incidence of flooding. And then, when higher temperatures ensure that glaciers can no longer be sustained, extreme drought will set in. The Indus, the lifeline of Pakistan, could see dramatically reduced flows and agricultural holdings across the country will become less productive.
The strangling of the Indus will in turn result in greater sea intrusion – already a major problem in Sindh – and the loss of even more arable land. Mass migration is inevitable in this scenario and squabbling over dwindling resources may lead to serious conflict amongst peoples and nations. Pakistan’s contribution to global warming is almost negligible, yet it will be among the countries hardest hit by climate change. It is up to the developed countries and emerging powers such as China, India and Brazil to arrest the slide before it is too late.
SOurce:dawn
High stakes in NASA’s last visit to Hubble US Shuttle Update
NASA will on Monday launch the shuttle Atlantis and seven astronauts into orbit on a high-risk last service mission to one of the greatest scientific instruments ever, the space telescope Hubble.
There is no room for error, the US space agency warned this week, in the fifth and final maintenance operation on the Hubble before the shuttle fleet is retired.
If all goes well, NASA says the telescope’s long-overdue service will extend the star-gazer’s life by at least five years.
“If successful we will be entering our second quarter century. That’s not bad for a mission that we hoped will last for 10 to 15 years,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA’S science missions directorate.
Hubble “will be more powerful and robust than ever before and will continue to enable world class science for at least another five years an overlap with the James Webb Space Telescope” its successor, he added.
Launched in 1990, Hubble has long been considered the greatest tool in the history of astronomy.
Using powerful instruments to peer into deep space, it has provided profound insights into the origins and evolution of the universe.
A journey to the 11-ton Hubble carries more risk of being hit by space debris or micrometeorites than a flight to the International Space Station, as the telescope orbits at almost twice the height of the ISS.
But officials hope the nearly 11-day mission will allow Hubble to keep functioning until 2014, when it is due to be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope, a highly sophisticated space telescope with an eagle-eye camera.
The mission launch is scheduled for 1801 GMT Monday from the Kennedy Space Centre near Cape Canaveral, Florida.
But even before undertaking the challenging task of carrying out a maintenance job 575 kilometres above Earth, NASA has left itself only a limited window for a launch.
The shuttle must liftoff on either May 11, 12 or 13 because planned military launch activities would block all other launches until May 22.
Hubble’s servicing will entail five space walks, each lasting up to seven hours. Crew members plan to replace the telescope’s six gyroscopes and batteries and upgrade its optical instruments.
The crew will carry out a variety of tasks including replacing electronic circuit boards, said scientist Dave Leckrone.
Astronauts will also install a new imaging camera and a Cosmic Origins Spectrograph — an especially sensitive instrument designed to split light it captures into individual wavelengths.
The spectrograph, NASA says, will not only be able to study stars, planets and galaxies but also basic elements found throughout the cosmos, such as carbon and iron.
And the new instruments will allow Hubble to peer even further back into time, perhaps as far back as some 600 million years before the Big Bang, much further than the billion years it can reach back now.
The maintenance is overdue after the years-long delay for US space flights since the 2003 Columbia disaster that saw the shuttle disintegrate as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crewmembers.
Last year a flight by the shuttle Atlantis to the telescope had to be twice rescheduled after it had a computer failure on board.
NASA announced this week that the IMAX Corporation and the filmmaking Warner Bros. company will launch IMAX 3-D cameras with the shuttle to document the mission.
Astronauts will use the cameras during the five spacewalks and, along with the telescope’s astounding array of images of distant galaxies, the footage will be released next year as the movie “Hubble 3D.”
SOurce:brisbanetimes
That’s according to the Czech EU presidency source who released the information. He also said the summit will be held within weeks, with June 17 given as the provisional date.
The fight against terrorism — including in neighboring Afghanistan — is expected to top the meeting’s agenda, but enhanced cooperation over the rule of law and measures to improve trade relations should also be discussed.
“The EU wants to help strengthen the civilian government in Pakistan by showing strong support on the highest level,” the EU source said.
In recent months, both the EU and the United States have showed a growing urgency in boosting ties with Pakistan, amid fears of increasing Islamic militancy. It is also seen to hold strategic importance to the US-led action in Afghanistan.
Military begins “full-scale offensive”
A traffic jam of cars as refugees fleeBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Thousands of Swat valley residents are trying to flee
Meanwhile, the Pakistani military has begun a full-scale offensive against a growing domestic Taliban insurgency. In a raid it that targeted several militant hideouts, the army claims to have killed 55 militants and destroyed the Taliban’s Swat Valley headquarters.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has described the offensive as a “war of the country’s survival”.
“This is not a normal war. This is a guerrilla war. But it is our resolve, it is the resolve of the army that there should be minimum collateral damage,” he said.
However, it has prompted hundreds of thousands of terrified residents to flee.
The United Nations’ refugee agency estimates more than 200,000 residents have tried to flee fighting in the area in recent days, with a further 300,000 on the move or about to. It has warned that with those figures, in addition to 555,000 already displaced because of fighting since August, there could be a “massive displacement” of up to one million people.
source:dw-world.de
PESHAWAR – At least nine militants were killed and 11 others injured when the US forces camping across the border in Afghanistan fired missiles at a compound from two drones in Shamanki-Kharerai area near Laddha South Waziristan Agency on Saturday.
Those killed and injured included foreign militants. As per details, militants’ compound established in a school at Shamankai-Kharerai in Sararogha Tehsil, was targeted with missiles through drones. The local tribesmen informed that from four to six missiles were fired against the compound, used for training and shelter of the militants in the area.
Soon after the missile strike, the site came under siege of the militants and they did not permit the local people to enter or contribute to the rescue activities.
The locals said that nine people were killed and 11 others injured. Conditions of several injured were stated to be serious. The identity of those killed and injured has not been ascertained so far.
However, local tribesmen believe that a number of non-local and foreigners were killed and injured in the missile attack. The site was in occupation of the militants from last several months.
source:nation
SRINAGAR (IHK): In occupied Kashmir, the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has appealed the people to participate in an anti-election rally at Eidgah in Srinagar on May 21, the martyrdom anniversary of prominent Hurriyet leaders, Moulvi Muhammad Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone, reports KMS.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq while addressing a public gathering in Srinagar said, “People should participate in the election-rejection rally to renew their support to the struggle.” He said that interference in the religious matters of Kashmiri people was unacceptable. “We can tolerate any brutality but interference in our religious affairs. We are ready to sacrifice our life for protecting our religious rights.”
The APHC Chairman said that for staging the election drama, the occupation authorities prevented the people from offering prayers at Jamia Masjid and other mosques. “If authorities continue to interfere into our religious affairs, Kashmiris will be forced to take extreme steps and the Government of India will be responsible for the consequences,” he said.
Coming down heavily on the puppet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and National Conference patron Dr Farooq Abdullah, the APHC Chairman said, “History is testimony to the fact that they have exploited Kashmiris for power and worldly perks. Their motive is just to represent India in Kashmir, exploit Kashmir’s resources and suppress the aspirations of the people.”
Mirwaiz pointed out that Kashmiris knew that who represented their sentiments, adding, “Kashmiris have given their blood to seek freedom. The foundation of our ongoing liberation struggle has been laid by untiring sacrifices.” Hailing the people of Srinagar and Islamabad for boycotting the elections, the APHC Chairman said, “I salute the determination of the people who despite pressure and heavy deployment of troops boycotted the polls.”
The international community had understood the need to resolve the Kashmir dispute. “America, European Union and others have underscored the importance of resolving the Kashmir dispute as they know that peace in South Asia cannot be restored until this issue is resolved,” he said
Where in the world do people feel most content with their lives?
According to a new report released by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 countries with democratic governments that provides economic and social statistics and data, happiness levels are highest in northern European countries.
In Depth: See All 10 of the World’s Happiest Places
Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands rated at the top of the list, ranking first, second and third, respectively. Outside Europe, New Zealand and Canada landed at Nos. 8 and 6, respectively. The United States did not crack the top 10. Switzerland placed seventh and Belgium placed tenth.
The report looked at subjective well-being, defined as life satisfaction. Did people feel like their lives were dominated by positive experiences and feelings, or negative ones?
To answer that question, the OECD used data from a Gallup World Poll conducted in 140 countries around the world last year. The poll asked respondents whether they had experienced six different forms of positive or negative feelings within the last day.
Some sample questions: Did you enjoy something you did yesterday? Were you proud of something you did yesterday? Did you learn something yesterday? Were you treated with respect yesterday? In each country, a representative sample of no more than 1,000 people, age 15 or older, were surveyed. The poll was scored numerically on a scale of 1-100. The average score was 62.4.
Why did the northern European countries come out looking so good? Overall economic health played a powerful role, says Simon Chapple, senior economist from the Social Policy Division of the OECD, which put together the report.
While the global economic crisis has taken a toll on every nation, the countries that scored at the top still boast some of the highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. Denmark, which got the highest score, is not only a wealthy country, it’s also highly productive, with a 2009 GDP per capita of $68,000, according to the International Monetary Fund. The United States’ GDP per capita, by contrast, is $47,335. Though the U.S. got an above-average score of 74, it did not break the top 10.
Wealth alone does not bring the greatest degree of happiness. Norway has the highest GDP per capita on the list – $98,822 – yet it ranked ninth, not first. On the other hand, New Zealand’s happiness level is 76.7 out of 100 on the OECD list, but its 2009 GDP per capita is just $30,556.
According to a 2005 editorial, published in the British Medical Journal and written by Dr. Tony Delamothe, research done in Mexico, Ghana, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K. shows that individuals typically get richer during their lifetimes, but not happier. It is family, social and community networks that bring joy to one’s life, according to Delamothe.
The OECD data shows that another important factor is work-life balance. While Scandinavian countries boast a high GDP per capita, the average workweek in that part of the world is no more than 37 hours. In China, which got a low score of just 14.8, the workweek is 47 hours and the GDP per capita is just $3,600.
Low unemployment also contributes to happiness. “One thing we know for sure,” says the OECD’s Chapple, “not having a job makes one substantially less satisfied.” Denmark’s unemployment rate is just 2 percent, according the C.I.A.’s World Factbook. Norway’s is just 2.6 percent. The Netherlands: just 4.5 percent. Many economists concur that a 4 percent unemployment rate reflects a stable economy. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 9 percent.