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Four media workers kidnapped in Somalia

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:14:53 GMT

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

New York, August 25, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the safety of three journalists and their driver who were abducted by an unknown armed group two days ago.

Somali photojournalist Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi and two foreign freelance journalists, Canadian Amanda Lindhout and Australian Nigel Brennan, along with a driver identified only as Mahad, were kidnapped along the

Afgoye-Mogadishu Road

, roughly 11 miles (17 kilometers) north of the capital, Mogadishu , local journalists told CPJ

The National Union of Somali Journalists said they believed the abducted group was being held in the northeastern village of Suqa Holaha on August 24 but local journalists and a relative of Elmi received a tip that they have moved since to Jowhar, a town 50 miles (90 kilometers) north of Mogadishu .

The reasons for the abduction are still unclear. Local journalists told CPJ that it appeared to have been to be a well-planned operation using three vehicles.

“ Somalia continues to be the most dangerous place for local and foreign journalists in Africa ,” said CPJ’s Africa Program Coordinator , Tom Rhodes . “CPJ calls on both the Transitional Government and the Islamic Courts Union to adhere to their public statements to do everything possible to ensure the safe release of these media workers.”

According to local reports, Mogadishu ’s interim mayor, Mohamed Osman Ali, condemned the abduction and is investigating. Government military spokesman Dahir Mohamed claimed that suspected members of the insurgent Islamic Courts Union—a coalition of Islamic courts fighting the transitional government—that make up the Lower Shabelle Administration are behind the kidnapping, local journalists said. The transitional government and the Islamic Courts Union have been fighting a civil war since December 2006, when the current government wrested power from the Islamic Union. The union’s spokesman, Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, told Reuters that they were not behind the abduction and would “do all that is possible to save them.”

According to HornAfrik journalist Abdullahi Hasan Suleiman, the three were abducted upon their return visit from a refugee camp in Celasha Biyaha, roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Mogadishu .

In a separate incident the previous day, police arrested journalist Ahmed Jeylani of Radio Voice of Holy Koran in the Bondhere district of Mogadishu. Police detained the journalist overnight without charges and released him without stating the reason behind his arrest, the National Union of Somali Journalists told CPJ.

The violence in Somalia has taken a heavy toll on journalists: Seven Somali journalists were killed because of their work in 2007—the world’s second-highest count behind Iraq . More than 50 others have fled Mogadishu , according to CPJ research. Two were killed earlier this year in separate incidents.

Author: credit CPJ

Source: Press Release

DETENTION OF GAMBIAN JOURNALIST EBRIMA MANNEH

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:08:02 GMT

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Here is a verbatim report of an American Senator Durbin who is calling for release of our Gambian journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh who has been missing for two years now. Senator has not only limited to the case of Manneh but many others in the world. Here goes the call.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, America has long been a champion and source of hope around the world for those suffering human rights violations--those holed up in dictators' prisons, those fighting for press and political freedoms, those bravely standing up to tyranny or injustice.

Many of those who have suffered, such as Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela, or continue to suffer this fate, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, are well-known to us. Sadly, for each one of them, there are many other, lesser known heroes being detained or harassed all over the world simply for wanting basic human freedoms.

Through our annual human rights reporting at the State Department, our diplomacy, and steady public pressure on basic human rights, the U.S. has traditionally been a source of hope for those being illegally detained or persecuted.

We should never forget what this kind of attention and pressure can accomplish and what kind of strength it provides for those being detained.

Take for example, Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun who was detained and tortured for peacefully expressing her belief in Tibetan independence. She was freed after 12 years of imprisonment following immense public pressure. After her release she said,

I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support ..... I am deeply touched to learn that many individuals, organizations, and governments.......have worked towards my release. It is very clear to me that I have been released and allowed to come out to the free world for medical treatment and to enjoy my freedom because of international concern.

Or Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev, a political activist from Turkmenistan who in 2004 was seized and forced into a psychiatric hospital by the country's ruling dictator. His crime--requesting permission for a peaceful political rally.

He was released a few years later, just 10 days after 54 members of Congress sent a letter to the Turkmen Government about his case.

We should listen and act upon the appeal made by Aung San Suu Kyi, who has remained under house arrest in Burma for most of the last 19 years:

Those fortunate enough to live in societies where they are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate in other parts of our troubled planet....... Please use your liberty to promote ours.

I realize we must also work to address our own recent shortcomings by unequivocally renouncing torture and by closing the detention facility in Guantanamo--and we will continue to work toward ending these shameful legacies.

At the same time, we must continue to speak out in support of those imprisoned for advocating basic freedoms around the world.

Many of us on both sides of the aisle have been arguing that America's strength resonates not only from its military power but from the power of its ideas and inspiration, the power of its values and hope, the power of its generosity and diplomacy--its smart power.

Sadly, I worry that a measure of this leadership, of this inspiration, and of this uniquely American hope has been lost in recent years.

Accordingly, today I want focus the Senate's attention on a tragic story from the small west African Nation of The Gambia.

Chief Ebrima Manneh was a reporter for the Gambian newspaper, the Daily Observer. He was allegedly detained in July 2006 by plainclothes police officers thought to have been from the Gambian National Intelligence Agency after he tried to republish a BBC report critical of President Yahya Jammeh.

He has been held incommunicado, without charge or trial, for two long years. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and has called for his immediate release.

I agree.

Recent reports suggest he is being held at the Fatoto Police Station in eastern Gambia. In July 2007, he was also reportedly escorted by the members of the Gambian Police Intervention Unit to the Royal Victoria hospital in the capital for high blood pressure treatment.

Despite repeated attempts by Manneh's father and fellow journalists, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, to seek information on Mr. Manneh, the Gambian Government continues to deny any involvement in his arrest or knowledge of his whereabouts.

My direct request to the Gambian Embassy here in Washington has also been met with shameful silence.

Last month in Nigeria, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States declared the arrest and detention of Mr. Manneh illegal and ordered Gambian officials to release him immediately.

And yet the Gambian Government ignored this court's ruling as well--even though this court has jurisdiction for human rights cases in the Gambia.

Is the Gambian Government so afraid of one of its own reporters that it cannot even acknowledge his detention?

I say to President Jammeh: Release this reporter. Let him return to his family.

Sadly, Mr. Manneh's case is not alone in The Gambia. In December 2004, a critic of President Jammeh, and press freedom advocate, Deyda Hydara, was shot and killed. His murder has yet to be solved or investigated.

The government has also enacted laws muzzling the press and imposing mandatory prison sentences for media owners if convicted of publishing defamatory or seditious material--all part of a larger deterioration of basic freedoms in The Gambia.

Madam President, the United States needs to be a forceful advocate for these kinds of blatant human rights abuses. Doing so is not only the right thing to do, but it is the smart thing to do in terms of our engagement abroad and in demonstrating our American values.

I yield the floor.

Author: CPJ

Source: None

AFRICA: IMF steps into food crisis

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:01:51 GMT

Monday, July 07, 2008

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is augmenting an existing facility and reshaping a second to help countries worst hit by the food and fuel price crisis, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Fund has already increased low-interest loans under existing arrangements with Benin, Burkina Faso, Kyrgyz Republic, Central African Republic, Haiti and Madagascar under its Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) to provide balance of payment and budget support, opened new PRGF arrangements with Mali and Niger, and is in discussions with about a dozen other countries.

On 2 July the Fund increased the nearly $90 million arrangement with Madagascar by about $30 million. Almost two weeks earlier it had approved some $26.5 million in additional aid to Haiti, enabling an immediate disbursement of about $38.7 million.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn also pledged to reform the Exogenous Shocks Facility (ESF), which provides low interest loans to countries affected by natural disasters, conflicts and crises in neighbouring countries that disrupt trade.

“We’re going to reshape our exogenous facility, which obviously is not adapted to the current crisis, and we’ll meet other requests if needed,” he told a Fund forum in Washington. The ESF requires that a Fund-supported economic programme be put in place.
This implicitly assumes that the country needs to change policies and/or adjust their macroeconomic stance, which is not always the case and causes delay, an IMF spokesperson said.

But for some in the humanitarian community the move, though welcome, is not enough, and the terms of 0.5 percent interest, and repayment over five-and-a-half to 10 years, still too arduous.

“We’re worried that the Fund’s money is actually relatively expensive,” Oxfam International senior policy adviser Elizabeth Stuart told IRIN. “They say they’ve checked and countries can afford to take on more debt. Well, maybe they can this time, but if this is going to carry on, can they afford to take on more debt in the future? So we say that the Fund should make its lending cheaper.”

She compared IMF loans with those under the International Development Association, the World Bank’s low-income arm. “You’ve got a payment holiday for 10 years and then you have 40 years to repay the loan, and there’s no interest rate,” she said.

“So that tells you how relatively expensive Fund money is in comparison. If the Fund wants to be a serious player in doing something about the food crisis, it needs to make its money cheaper.”

Tipping point

At the Washington Forum, the IMF released a study identifying 18 sub-Saharan countries that have been especially hard hit and urgently needed additional balance of payment and budget support.

“The scale of the aftershocks really threatens to derail macro-economic stability and efforts to achieve the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals],” Strauss-Kahn said.

“Some countries are at a tipping point. If food prices rise further and oil prices stay the same, some governments will no longer be able to feed their people and at the same time maintain stability in their economies.
“They need good policy options and they need help from the international community. Their challenge is ours. It is to ensure adequate food supplies while preserving the poverty-reducing benefits derived in recent years from faster growth, low inflation, and better budget and balance of payments positions.”

The study noted that monetary and fiscal policies would have to adjust, with the exchange rate in some cases playing an important role.

David Kauck, senior policy analyst at CARE, said: “They’re [the IMF] looking at balance of payments and cash reserves and they’re worried about the fact that rising prices are going to cause a serious balance of payments problem and cash flow problem for some of these countries and that it might be so severe that they might not be able to import what they need. And I think that’s quite reasonable.”

Room for manouevre

Oxfam’s Stewart would like to see more and quicker IMF action. “I think they should be helping more countries. The Fund always moves slowly and actually [now] in some terms it’s moving relatively quickly,” she said.
“But we think the Fund should automatically offer extra money under the terms of the loan agreement. You shouldn’t have to wait for a review by the Board, you should offer it automatically to any country that is suffering from the food crisis. In some ways the Fund’s moving quickly, but it needs to move more quickly still.”

Noting its pledge on policy advice, she called on the Fund to give countries flexibility, changing the terms of some PRGF arrangements. For example, if a country needed to spend more, there should be more room for manoeuvre within the PRGF. In the past these arrangements targeted single-digit inflation or certain balance of payment deficits.

“Clearly when countries are coming into this sort of crisis they need more space,” she added, saying the Fund was fudging its own role in the current situation.

“What about past policies that dismantled lots of mechanisms that would allow countries to deal with the food crisis, things like dismantling buffer stocks, and privatising state marketing boards? There were some kinds of safety nets that were built into the system and the [World] Bank and the Fund have in the past been part of getting rid of those.”

But the deputy director of the IMF’s African Department, Benedicte Christensen, defended the Fund’s role: “We hope also that our support has a catalytic impact in drawing the attention of donors to the needs and providing also a framework for them to contribute as well,” she told the Washington forum.

IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

Sports Profile: Mike Tyson, an iron man in the ring

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:33:59 GMT

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Friday, June 13, 2008

Mike Tyson is one of the most notorious boxers in prizefighting history thanks to his actions both inside the ring and out.

His speed, power and angry aggression earned him the World Boxing Council heavyweight title in 1986, making him the youngest champion ever. The next year he won the World Boxing Association title and "Iron Mike" became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

In 1988, in one of his most famous fights, Tyson knocked out previously undefeated Michael Spinks in 91 seconds and earned $20 million. For a brief time he seemed invincible, until he was knocked out by the lightly-regarded James "Buster" Douglas in 1990.

Then Tyson began making headlines for different reasons: his brief marriage to actress Robin Givens was followed by a bitter divorce battle; he was convicted of rape in 1992 and spent three years in prison; a comeback was stymied in 1997 when he bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear in the middle of a match; he was jailed briefly again in 1999 for assault; and at a 2002 press conference to announce an upcoming bout, he attacked opponent Lennox Lewis and bit his leg.

(The fight took place anyway on 8 June 2002, and Lennox knocked out Tyson in the eighth round). Tyson's fans considered him a troubled youth who battled long odds to become one the sport's greatest names; his detractors said his behavior gave the sport a black eye. Tyson's fight career never quite recovered after his stint in jail, and he said he "most likely" wouldn't fight again after being defeated in a 7th-round technical knockout by journeyman heavyweight Kevin McBride on 11 June 2005.

Tyson is famous for his many tattoos, which include images of Arthur Ashe (left bicep), Mao Zedong (right bicep), Che Guevara (abdomen), and a tribal-type tattoo around his right eye and cheekbone... Tyson reportedly earned over $400 million in his career, yet was $34 million in debt before his 2005 fight with Kevin McBride, for which he was paid $5 million vs. McBride's $150,000... On 29 December 2006 Tyson was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona and charged with driving while intoxicated.

Youngest heavyweight champion

Michael Gerard Tyson was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 30, 1966, to Lorna Tyson and Jimmy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick left the family when his son was two years old. As a youth Tyson joined a street gang at a very early age and was in trouble with the law many times before he was 12 years old. After an arrest for armed robbery he was sent to the Tyron School in 1978, a correction center for juveniles in upstate New York. It was there that his life changed direction.

The school's physical education teacher saw potential in the young man and introduced him to legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato, who lived near the facility at the time. Tyson thrived under the new structure and discipline in his life. Tyson moved in with D'Amato and, when the boxer's mother died when he was 16, D'Amato became his legal guardian.

Tyson was sent back to the Tyron School for a time after he was threatened with a gun by his then-trainer Teddy Atlas. The trainer had heard that Tyson sexually abused a 12-year-old girl and was trying to frighten him. Tyson made stunning progress as an amateur and decided to try out for the Olympic team at the age of 17. After failing to make the 1984 Olympic team, D'Amato decided that it was time for his fighter to turn professional.

On March 4, 1985, Tyson stepped into the ring for his first professional fight. He had studied boxing history and watched old newsreel footage of the great fighters of the past and wanted to emulate them. He entered the ring without fanfare, without a robe, without socks, dressed in black with the most menacing and intimidating glare in boxing. Many of his opponents were beaten before Tyson even stepped through the ropes. Tyson went 15-0 in his first year as a professional boxer. Many boxing aficionados thought that D'Amato had created the perfect heavyweight fighter. But he would never live to see his man become champion. The 77-year-old trainer died in November of 1985.

Despite this loss, Tyson continued to storm through the heavyweight division. One year after D'Amato's death, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion ever when he gained the World Boxing Council (WBC) championship belt after a two-round knockout of Trevor Berbick. Co-manager Jimmy Jacobs told Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated that everything was going according to plan: "Cus predicted that Mike would fight for the title before the end of 1986.... Cus said the only way to prepare Mike for this was to give him a speed education by a multiple of four. So there has been no R and R for Mike.

There couldn't be. And he has held up beautifully." The next year Tyson united the heavyweight championship, defeating James "Bonecrusher" Smith for the World Boxing Association (WBA) belt in March and Tony Tucker for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) belt in August. Tyson was on top of the boxing world as the most ferocious boxer in the sport's most glamorous division. But he soon learned that success often comes at a price.

Professional glory

In 1988 Jimmy Jacobs died, leaving Tyson without the co-manager who had been with him from the beginning of his career. Into the vacuum in Tyson's life created by the deaths of D'Amato and Jacobs came Don King, boxing's most notorious promoter, and Tyson's new wife, actress Robin Givens, whom he had married after a two-week courtship.

In the ring the fighter was at the absolute pinnacle of his power, defeating former IBF champ Michael Spinks in 91 seconds. Outside the ring Tyson's life was spinning out of control. He broke his hand in a street fight with a former opponent Mitch "Blood" Green. Then he crashed his BMW into a tree on D'Amato's former estate. Some in the media reported that the crash was intentional and amounted to a failed suicide attempt.

He was reported to have chased Givens and her mother through the streets of Moscow, where she was shooting a movie. And then there was the appearance with his wife on national television in a question-and-answer session with Barbara Walters. Tyson sat next to Givens looking half-awake as his wife talked about him as if he were not there. She said that he was a manic-depressive and claimed that he had abused her. Soon after the humiliating ordeal Givens and Tyson were divorced.

The exit of Givens left Don King firmly in control of Tyson. For five years Tyson had destroyed opponent after opponent, but that would soon change. On February 11, 1990, Tyson fought James "Buster" Douglas, a 42-1 underdog. From the very beginning of the fight, there was a different atmosphere. Tyson was sluggish--some claim from anti-depressant medication--and his journeyman opponent seemed to be different also, as if he were not afraid of the man so many others had feared to fight. Tyson knocked down Douglas, but the challenger recovered and ended up knocking out the champion in the tenth round.

Tyson recovered from his loss to win two more bouts in 1990. The next year he defeated Donovan "Razor" Ruddock twice. His next fight was for the heavyweight championship against Evander Holyfield, but that scheduled fight never happened.

Went to Prison

While attending the Miss Black America contest, Tyson met 18-year-old Desiree Washington. On July 19, 1991, Tyson took her back to his hotel room and allegedly raped the young pageant contestant. He was tried and convicted of rape and, in March of 1992, Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison. He spent three years of his six-year sentence in jail. Word leaked out that Tyson was a different man after spending time behind bars. He was said to be reading communist literature and Malcolm X, and had even converted to Islam.

The 28-year-old Tyson was released from prison on March 25, 1995. He emerged from prison with tattoos of tennis star Arthur Ashe and communist leader Mao Zedong on his arms. He went to a nearby mosque and met with boxing great Muhammad Ali immediately after he left the prison grounds. Though many boxing promoters and managers had courted the fighter in prison, it was Don King who negotiated a deal with Showtime on his fighter's first day out of prison.

Tyson's first post-prison opponent was Boston journeyman Peter McNeely, with a record of 36-1. On paper he seemed good enough, but his opponents'combined records were 148-436. McNeely maintained a brave face throughout the pre-fight pomp and circumstance, though everyone suspected the fight would go to Tyson. Tyson knocked down McNeely twice and then McNeely's manager threw in the towel after 89 seconds of the first round.

Over the next year Tyson beat up on lesser fighters and stirred controversy. King tried to schedule Tyson's next fight on the same night and in the same city (Las Vegas) as a pay-per-view fight between Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield, causing an uproar among boxing circles. The fight was rescheduled when Tyson broke his thumb, and Tyson knocked out Buster Mathis in the third round of their eventual fight on December 16th in Philadelphia.

Easy victories followed. On March 16, 1996, Tyson fought the tough talking but weak-chinned Englishman Frank Bruno. Clearly frightened in the ring, Bruno was repeatedly warned for clinching in the first two rounds of the fight. Tyson battered Bruno in the third, sending him sliding incoherently down the ropes 50 seconds into the round. On September 7, 1996, Tyson knocked out Bruce Seldon in 109 seconds. Many spectators and fans watching the pay-per-view event thought the fight was fixed because few saw Tyson punch Seldon, but Seldon's trainer said that his man was so scared that he may have had a nervous breakdown. This string of fights earned Tyson some $65 million dollars.

The victory over Seldon gave Tyson the WBA championship and a legitimate claim to fighting Evander Holyfield, who he had been waiting to fight since 1991. Holyfield was seen as a washed-up fighter, in danger even of being killed in the ring by Tyson. Holyfield was a 25-1 underdog, but he would make $11 million to Tyson's $30 million.

Despite the long odds, Holyfield was the first man whom Tyson faced since he was released from prison who would fight back. In the sixth round, Holyfield opened a cut over Tyson's left eye with a head butt and then dropped Tyson with a left hook. It was only the second time Tyson was knocked down in his whole career. At that point Holyfield said that he knew he had beaten Tyson and for the rest of the fight, he jabbed Tyson and stayed out of his rival's reach. Tyson lost, but the fight grossed $100 million and a rematch was assured.

Infamy in the desert

Anticipation for the Tyson-Holyfield rematch was so great that the MGM sold out its 16,000 tickets on the first day. The spectators and the millions viewing on pay-per-view expected to be part of another unforgettable moment in Tyson's career. They were not disappointed. The first round seemed to pick up where the first match left off. Holyfield was the aggressor, sometimes leading with his head. In the second, Holyfield head-butted Tyson and cut him above his right eye. The fight became more brutal, with both fighters seeming to abandon the rules.

Then, in the third round, Tyson and Holyfield clinched in the middle of the ring. Tyson seemed to search for his opponent's ear, find it, and then purposely chomped down on it. Holyfield propelled himself into the air and Tyson spit out his mouthpiece and a piece of Holyfield's ear. Tyson then followed Holyfield back to his corner and pushed him with both hands. There was a two-minute delay, after which it was decided the fight could continue. The two clinched in the center of the ring and Tyson reached over and bit Holyfield's other ear. The ring immediately filled with people and chaos ensued. As Tyson left the arena with empty beer cups raining down on him, it seemed that the youngest and most-feared heavyweight champion might be drummed out of boxing forever.

Fighting for the money

Tyson's controversial defeat at the hands of the aging Holyfield led many to believe that his career was finished. But enduring financial troubles, including $13 million in debt from back taxes, lured Tyson back into the ring through the late 1990s and early 2000s. Tyson took steps to bring more discipline to his fighting and his life. He parted ways with Don King in a flurry of lawsuits. He married again, this time to a pediatrician. His training regimen became steadier and he returned to the ring, making mountains of cash against opponents who offered little opposition. Tyson scored easy victories over British champion Julius Francis in Manchester, England, in February of 2000 and Brian "Danish Pastry" Nielsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October of 2001. "I'm back," Tyson said after the latter victory.

Despite these positive steps, Tyson's public behavior became increasingly angry and irrational. In March of 1999 he spent a short time in jail after pleading no contest to two misdemeanor assault charges stemming from a road rage incident. Following a 2000 match in which he defeated Lou Savarese in 38 seconds, Tyson told the assembled media, "I am the most ruthless, brutal champion ever. I am Sonny Liston and Jack Dempsey. There is no one who can match me." He saved his most bizarre remarks for a future opponent, heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis. "I want your heart. I want to eat your children," Tyson proclaimed of Lewis.

The Tyson-Lewis fight, scheduled for June of 2002 in Memphis, Tennessee, was given a huge build-up in the press, and the fighters were kept from seeing each other prior to the match. Though the fight set records with pay-per-view sales of $103 million, it hardly met expectations. Lewis took command early and appeared to toy with an overmatched Tyson for the early rounds. Then, in the eighth, he leveled Tyson with a hard right to the head.

Tyson was oddly tender after the fight. He hugged his opponent and then, noticing that he had left blood on the champion's cheek, reached up and gently wiped his face. Tyson proclaimed that Lewis "was splendid, a masterful boxer, and I take my hat off to him." Asked about a rematch, Tyson said, "I'd be crazy to ask for a rematch. He's too big and too strong. I mean, for the right price, I'll fight a lion. But I don't think I can beat that guy."

Though the Lewis match clearly showed Tyson to be past his prime, his reputation and ability to draw fans continue to draw fight promoters looking to cash in on the spectacle of a Tyson match. Late in 2003, speculation swirled that he might fight champion Roy Jones, perhaps in Eastern Europe or Russia. The bigger fight facing Tyson seemed to be in the courtroom, where he tried to fend off his many creditors. Despite earning approximately $20 million from the Lewis fight, Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

Awards

WBC title, heavyweight champion, 1986; WBA title, 1987; IBF championship, 1987; WBC championship, 1996; WBA championship, 1996.

Author: by Nanama Keita

Star Profile: Serena Williams

Wed, 28 May 2008 13:15:07 GMT

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Life's Work
Ranked number one in the world among female tennis professionals in 2002, Serena Williams had become one of the sport's most exciting and closely watched young players.

With her older sister Venus, she formed half of a tennis-prodigy pair that had been making headlines from an early age. As an African American in an historically white- and European-dominated sport, she found herself in the spotlight and under scrutiny.

Serena and Venus Williams were coached by their father, Richard, an unorthodox career-builder whose methods stirred comment and controversy. Beyond all these reasons Serena Williams caught the attention of tennis fans simply because she was a player of extraordinary ability and dynamism. She rose to the very top of her game achieving the No. 1 ranking among female tennis players in the world in 2002 and winning seven Grand Slam events by 2005.

Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, on September 26, 1981, but she and her sister were raised in the economically depressed and often violence-riddled Los Angeles suburb of Compton. Her father, Richard Williams, ran a private security firm, and her mother Oracene (who often uses the name Brandy) was a nurse. A fan of televised tennis, Richard Williams dreamed of the opportunities that might await his offspring-to-be: "I went to my wife and said, 'Let's have kids and make them tennis players,'" he told Newsweek. Venus, born in 1980, and Serena, the youngest daughter, showed promise from the start. "Venus and Serena took to tennis as soon as rackets were put in their hands," older sister Lyndrea told Sport magazine.

Early career
The sisters' early training took place on public tennis courts in and around Compton, where they remember having to duck gunfire. Despite this difficult beginning, though, their skills developed rapidly. Serena entered her first tournament at the age of four and a half, and over the next five years, her father has claimed, she won 46 of 49 tournaments she entered. She succeeded Venus as the number-one player in southern California's highly competitive age-12-and-under rankings, and well before reaching adolescence both sisters had attracted national attention in the form of invitations to prestigious tennis camps, promises of lucrative product-endorsement deals, and glowing newspaper reportage.

WTA Ranks
Williams's first professional match in the WTA was in Moscow in 1997 where she was taken out in the first round by a highly ranked player. Many critics claimed that she did not have the talent of her older sister, who was slowly climbing the ranks of the WTA, but that perception was soon to change.

Williams qualified for an Ameritech-sponsored tournament in Chicago where she was slated to face Mary Pierce, who was ranked number seven in the world, in the second round. She staged a stunning upset over Pierce, beating her in only two sets. This advanced her to the quarter finals where she faced an even more difficult opponent, fourth-ranked Monica Seles.

At first it seemed that Williams had given her all in the match against Pierce as she dropped the first set to Seles. Then, in a shocking turn of events, Williams rallied and won the next two sets, defeating Seles. The critics who had said that she showed little promise only a few weeks before now spoke of her as the next rising WTA star, which was reflected in her ranking, which jumped from 304 to 102 after the tournament. She would finish 1997, her first full season with the WTA, with a ranking of 99.

By the following year her world ranking had risen as high as number 21, and both Williams and her sister, Venus, were bona-fide celebrities. She served notice that her time had come when she advanced to the semifinals of a Sydney, Australia tournament by beating the then third-ranked woman in the world, Lindsay Davenport, who went on to become the United States Open champion that year.

Expected to do well in her first Grand tournament, the Australian Open, Williams had the bad luck of having to face her sister in the second round after ousting ninth-ranked Irina Spirlea in the first round.

Venus emerged victorious, and Essence magazine reported that she was heard to say, "I'm sorry I had to take you out, Serena," as the two sisters walked off the court. This was the first time that the public caught a glimpse of the relationship between the two sisters and how they work not only to be the best for themselves, but also to motivate each other. The sisters met again that year at the Italian Open, this time in the quarter finals where once again Venus took the victory.

Nineteen-ninety-eight continued to be an excellent year for Williams as she realized success beyond expectations. She began to play in doubles play and won two other doubles titles that year with Venus in Oklahoma City and Zurich. Her victory in Oklahoma City became Williams's first pro title in doubles, but it would not be her last. She also went on to win two mixed double titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open with partner Max Mirnyi.

1999 was a watershed year for Williams as it would be the one in which she won her first singles title as well as a Grand Slam tournament. Ranked No. 21 at the beginning of the season, her first singles title came at the Paris Indoor tournament where she defeated Amelie Mauresmo in three sets.

From there Williams went on to win Indian Wells where she plowed through Lindsey Davenport, Mary Pierce, and number seven ranked Steffi Graf to gain the victory. Williams was on a 16-match win streak when she went against Venus again in the finals of a tournament in Miami, having defeated Seles, Coetzer, and number one ranked Martina Hingis in straight sets. Despite losing to her sister again, Williams cracked the top ten of the rankings for the first time, becoming the ninth best player in the world.

Williams's biggest match of the year, however, came when she entered the U.S. Open. Her road to the finals took her through fourth-ranked Seles and second-ranked Davenport. Once she had defeated them, she had to face number one ranked Hingis, and when the final match was over, Williams had won her first Grand Slam tournament in record-setting fashion.

She became the lowest seeded player to ever win the title and only the second African-American woman to win a Grand Slam title. The only thing Williams had not done yet was to beat her sister Venus, and that happened later that year when the sisters met in the finals of the Grand Slam Cup. It seemed that nothing could stop Williams and that she was poised to take over the world of women's tennis.

Became Best
The 2001 season started out slow for Williams when she lost twice to Hingis, once in Sydney and once at the Australian Open. She did, however, find victory again in the doubles tournament of the Australian Open with her sister Venus. As doubles partners, the Williams sisters seemed undefeatable. While Venus would continue to succeed early in the season, Williams seemed to continue down the familiar path she had traveled in 1999 and 2000 when she withdrew from the Paris Indoor tournament with fatigue and from the Scottsdale tournament with the flu. While she did win a title at Indian Wells over Kim Clijster, she fell to Capriati in the quarter-finals round in the Miami tournament and withdrew from the Charleston tournament, the Italian Open, and the Madrid tournament because of knee injuries.

Williams bounced back to win the Canadian Open over third-ranked Capriati who had knocked her out of Wimbledon that year in the second quarter-finals round. Then Williams dominated the U.S. Open defeating Davenport and Hingis on her way to the finals where she once again was matched up against her sister Venus. It was the first time that the sisters had ever met in a Grand Slam final and while the match-up proved to be much more exciting than their semifinal round in Wimbledon the previous year, Williams still walked away defeated by her older sister.

While Williams took the loss hard, she used it as a stepping stone to improve even more and by the end of the season, she was in peak form and for the first time was healthy enough to compete in the WTA Championship. She advanced to the finals where she faced Davenport, but the match was never played because Davenport withdrew with a knee injury. While Williams has said she would have rather played the match to prove that she was the best player that year, she still walked away with a major win, her first since her U.S. Open win in 1999.

Finally, in 2002, Williams hit her stride and began to rack up the victories. She started off slow with an ankle injury in the Australian Open, but went on to win a major tournament in Miami, where she beat the three top players in the world (Hingis, sister Venus, and Capriati) on the way to the title. From there, Williams only continued to succeed.

She took the Italian Open victory from Capriati and then captured the French Open title, beating out Venus for the first time in a Grand Slam competition and rising to No. 2 in the world rankings, bested only by her No. 1 ranked sister, Venus. The siblings got a chance at a rematch later that year when they met in the final at Wimbledon, where once again, Williams defeated Venus to take the title.

To Williams, this was the most important win of her career to date, because, as she told the Sunday Mercury, As in past years, Williams also competed with sister Venus in the doubles competition at Wimbledon and came away with another title, their fifth Grand Slam victory as a team.

After Wimbledon, Williams quickly snatched the number one ranking away from Venus and for the next year held on to it with amazing play on the courts. She once again defeated Venus, this time in the U.S. Open, for a third straight Grand Slam victory that year.

She also won numerous other tournaments both in single and double play including the Princess Cup in Tokyo and the Leipzig tournament, but ended up losing the WTA Championship to Clijster in two sets. The following season she started off strong by winning her fourth straight Grand Slam event, once again beating Venus in the finals at the Australian Open, and becoming one of only five women to have ever held all four Grand Slam titles at one time.

The Williams sisters took the doubles title as well at the Australian Open, their sixth straight. Williams went on to win the Paris Indoor tournament and Miami tournament before losing in the Charleston tournament finals to Justine Henin-Hardenne, ending a 21-match winning streak.

Awards
Selected: Won seven Grand Slam tournaments including 1999 and 2002 U.S. Open, 2002 French Open, 2002 and 2003 Wimbledon, the 2003 and 2005 Australian Open; won six Grand Slam doubles tournaments including 1999 U.S. Open, 1999 French Open, 2000 and 2002 Wimbledon, and the 2001 and 2003 Australian Open; won WTA Championship, 2001; won Olympic gold medal for doubles tennis, 2000; WTA number one ranked player in the world, July 8, 2002-August 10, 2003; Female Athlete of the Year, Associated Press, 2003; ESPY for female tennis player of the year and female athlete of the year, 2003; Sportswoman of the Year, Laureus World Sports Academy.

Author: SO

World Bank Announces Winners of Award for Outstanding Public Service

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:04:59 GMT

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The World Bank today announced the three winners of the 2008 Jit Gill Memorial Award for Outstanding Public Service: Kisan Baburao Hajare, a social activist from India; Karina Constantino-David, former Chair of the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines, and Nuhu Ribadu, Chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria.

The World Bank established this memorial award for Outstanding Public Service in 2004, following the death of the Bank staff Jit Gill, a dedicated leader in public sector governance and integrity.

“The people honored today have embodied the highest ideals of public service,” said Danny Leipziger, World Bank Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM). “They clearly were able to translate their ideals into innovative public sector reforms.”

Mr. Kisan Baburao Hajare is a social activist from India, who created a thriving model village in Ralegan Siddhi, in the impoverished Ahmednagar region of Maharashtra state, and championed the right to information and the fight against corruption. Ms. Karina Constantino-David, battled against formidable obstacles to defend meritocracy and improve civil service pay as Chair of the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines until February of this year. Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, has led a courageous anticorruption drive in Nigeria, as Head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

“We instituted this award in 2004 as part of our work on leadership with integrity as a crucial pillar for good governance and anticorruption,” said Sanjay Pradhan, Director of the Public Sector Governance Group in the World Bank. “The award is intended as an inspirational tool to recognize the courage, tenacity and contributions of outstanding leaderships who have championed reforms for better governance against formidable odds.”

The memorial award was received by the honorees today during the Jit Gill Memorial Lecture held at the World Bank, as part of the annual conference of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network.

The World Bank

World Health Day 2008 - UNICEF cautions about the impact of climate change on the health of women and children

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:06:40 GMT

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The impact of climate change could fall disproportionately on women and children, UNICEF cautioned today, on the occasion of World Health Day 2008.

The theme for World Health Day 2008 is climate change and health. The annual day commemorates the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Nearly 10 million children under age five die every year of largely preventable diseases,” said Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF. “Many of the main global killers of children – including malaria and diarrhoea – are sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall, and could become more common if weather patterns change.”

In addition, women and children tend to be disproportionately affected by hurricanes and flooding, which climate change experts say will increase in intensity and frequency in coming years. The destruction of homes, schools and health centres resulting from natural disasters reduce services available to families.

Climate change experts also predict that warming and shifting rains could impact crop production, which could reduce food availability. In 2006, some 36 per cent of children globally were either moderately or severely underweight.

Last year’s report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that malnutrition and associated disorders, including those relating to child growth and development, could increase as the global climate changes. Reduced supplies of clean water in some areas could also add to the burden on rural women and girls, who are usually responsible for collecting water for cooking and washing.

The voices of women and children must be heard and their needs assessed as part of the international response to prospective changes to the environment, and they must have access to the knowledge and tools necessary to protect themselves and their communities.

Source: UNICEF http://unicef.org

UN examines human rights in member countries

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:43:19 GMT

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

All UN member states are facing a rigorous examination of their human rights records. The inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group began on Monday.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a new mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council and, over the next four years, it will regularly review the human rights obligations and commitments of all 192 Member States. Governments themselves will carry out this regular and systematic scrutiny.

The new process will address one of the main criticisms of the Council’s predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, which was accused of considering only a small number of countries, and of often avoiding pressing situations for political reasons.

The UPR Working Group will, until 18 April, examine the human rights records of 16 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, India, Indonesia, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Tunisia and the UK.

This first session will be followed by two further sessions in 2008, so that 48 countries, selected by drawing lots, will have been scrutinized during the year.

An important feature of the new process is that governments of the countries under examination are expected to carry out a broad consultation among civil society. Amnesty International has lobbied energetically to ensure that all relevant voices are heard.

The organisation has submitted information on 14 of the 16 countries above and its members and supporters are working with civil society within each country to raise awareness of the new process.

Amnesty International said, in a statement issued on Monday, that this first session of the UPR Working Group will be key in setting the standard for future reviews, in terms of process as well as substance.

"Both reviewed and reviewing countries have an important role to play. Amnesty International looks to all member states to step up and help launch the UPR as an effective human rights mechanism," said Martin Macpherson, Director of the organization's International Law and Organisations Programme.

Amnesty International

GLOBAL: Differing views on a “new deal” to counter soaring food prices for the poor

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:52:03 GMT

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

With soaring food prices expected to continue for the foreseeable future, the World Bank is calling for a “new deal” of long-term measures, ranging from increased investment in African agriculture to genetically engineering fuel-producing plants.

Aid organisations are already confronting growing financial shortfalls in their struggle to feed the world’s hungry as food prices have exploded over the past six months, propelled by increased demand from newly prosperous Asian countries like China, rising fuel prices and the diversion of land from food crops to bio-fuel production.

The problem extends way beyond usual temporary production blips like the recent Australian drought, the volatility of soaring oil prices and a falling dollar, and could be severely compounded by climate change - with harsher droughts in some parts of the world and more severe flooding in others predicted.

In a worst case scenario not only could mortality and disease from malnutrition, already the underlying cause of an estimated 3.5 million child deaths each year, soar, but widespread social and political unrest might erupt. Food riots have already been reported in several countries and the World Bank estimates that 33 nations face potential social unrest.

“For these countries, where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption [spending], there is no margin for survival,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick told the Center for Global Development in Washington on 2 April, calling for a "new deal" combining hundreds of millions of additional dollars for immediate relief with long-term efforts to boost agricultural productivity in developing countries.

He announced that the Bank would nearly double agricultural assistance to US$800 million in Africa, adding: “We can help create a ‘Green Revolution’ for sub-Saharan Africa.”

Just last month the UN World Food Programme (WFP) issued an “extraordinary emergency appeal” to world government leaders, endorsed by Zoellick yesterday, for an additional $500 million over the $2.9 billion it sought a few months ago, just to feed the same 73 million people in 78 countries.

Policy questions

For some the World Bank’s “new deal,” which follows up on the conclusions of a report last year, has been too slow in coming. “The World Bank, I would say very belatedly, acknowledged the importance of the agricultural sector,” Tom Arnold, chief executive of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Concern Worldwide, which seeks to reduce suffering in the poorest countries, told IRIN.

“Immediately, there needs to be a recognition that if we are to have some kind of international safety net in place for the most vulnerable people on the planet, then responding positively to something like WFP is an important aspect,” he said.

“For the longer term, there are a lot of big policy questions that need to be addressed both nationally and internationally, such as taking agriculture more seriously in the economic sector... Any short-term measures to alleviate the problem have to go hand in hand with a serious and strategic commitment to promoting agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Other NGOs agree. “For the recent couple of decades donors, including countries like the United States, have been quite dramatically neglecting the agricultural sector, reducing their funding support for agricultural programmes,” Oxfam America Policy Director Gawain Kripke told IRIN.

“The food aid system is quite broken and needs reform, and urgently needs it, because dollars are being wasted quite dramatically. We need to be thinking about less short-term palliative responses and longer-term security responses,” he said.

Avoiding high transport costs

The NGO Action Against Hunger (AAH) calls for building capacity in Africa through access to credit, agricultural extension programmes and training, citing the continent’s untapped potential and the need to avoid the high transportation costs as oil prices soar.

“The transport costs associated with food aid could be better used to improve local production techniques and agricultural systems,” AAH Food Security Adviser Silke Pietzsch told IRIN.

Oxfam America’s Kripke cited US insistence that all US food aid be purchased in the US and shipped mostly on US-flagged carriers as a major barrier, greatly increasing costs and entailing delays of up to six months.

“The cost increment of doing it that way rather than buying food more flexibly for instance in Africa for distribution in Africa, can be 50 percent,” he said. “So we can get a lot more assistance from the same amount of money if the United States were to reform how it did its food assistance.”

GM crops

Siwa Msangi, research fellow in the Environment and Production Technology Division of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), believes bio-technology holds the solution and that genetically mutated crops need to be de-demonised.

“Biotechnologies can help us grow more drought-resistant, pest-resistant, disease-resistant traits in staple crops,” he told IRIN. This could counter climate change by, for example, producing submergence-resistant strains to withstand increased flooding.

“There are certain attitudes to technologies in food that I think we need to overcome through better education,” he said, citing the prejudices against so-called franken-foods and franken-fish and noting that farmers in Africa are afraid to use bio-technologies that might reduce their competitiveness on the European market due to attitudes there.

But for some there is at present no clear way ahead. Jim Bishop, president for Humanitarian Policy and Practice of InterAction, a US-based coalition of non-profit organisations, said US groups and international agencies like the WFP are still trying “to come to grips” with how to respond adequately.

“The longer term prospects are not terribly encouraging,” he told IRIN. “No one has come up with an agreed answer to the problem. There obviously isn’t a silver bullet, and there’ll be various views, and we hope that the international community will contribute additional resources.”

Bio-fuels and biotechnology

Nobel economics prize winner and former World Bank chief economist Joseph E. Stiglitz sees bio-fuels as a major culprit. “The market has been distorted badly by some of the bio-fuel requirements,” he told IRIN. “The whole system is affected by this very large withdrawal of agricultural output that was going into food production.”

But this is where biotechnology could come to the rescue, according IFPRI’s Msangi. “We should be aiming for high yielding varieties both for food and for fuel as well,” he said, foreseeing a switch to grasses, and to using the stock instead of the grain of maize for fuel.

Meanwhile the immediate problem remains. Zoellick called for immediate action on WFP’s new appeal. “The United States, the European Union, Japan, and other OECD [the 30-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries must act now to fill this gap - or many more people will suffer and starve,” he warned.

USAID announced in February that its food aid costs had jumped 41 percent in the first half of the US 2008 financial year, swallowing $120 million.

Another donor, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), this fiscal year has already provided over $116 million to WFP. “The Government of Canada is concerned by the impact that the rising price of food commodities will have on the world’s vulnerable and hungry people,” CIDA spokeswoman Jo-Ann Purcell told IRIN. “We will continue to follow WFP needs closely and make every effort possible to respond to the increased demands for food aid.”

WFP continues to call attention to the plight of the one billion people who still live on less than $1 a day, the threshold defined by the international community as absolute poverty, below which survival is in question.

“The crunch means that families which may have had a bit of money to pay school fees for their children, to go to clinics when they are sick, or take much-needed nourishing food together with anti-retroviral drugs, will suffer as they will cut back in these areas,” it said in a recent update. “They will also start cutting meals and substituting less nutritious foods.”

Source: IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

More HIV-positive children and pregnant women getting AIDS treatment, new report says

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:28:54 GMT

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Monday, April 07, 2008

More HIV-positive children and pregnant women are receiving treatment but there is still a long way to go before the promise of an AIDS-free generation is fulfilled, according to a United Nations report released today.

Children and AIDS: Second stocktaking report is a review of progress on how AIDS affects children and young people. Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS, which was launched in October 2005 by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNICEF and other partners, was a call to action around the impact of HIV and AIDS on children.

“Today’s children and young people have never known a world free of AIDS,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “Thousands lose their lives to the disease every year, and millions have lost parents and caregivers. Children must be at the heart of the global AIDS agenda.”

Produced by UNAIDS, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, the report reviews the progress made – and the challenges remaining – in four key areas: preventing HIV transmission from mothers to children (PMTCT), providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people, and protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS. The report focuses on low- and middle-income countries.

According to the report, in 2007, an estimated 290,000 children under 15 died from AIDS, and 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa lost one or both parents to AIDS.

However by the end of 2006, 21 countries – including Benin, Botswana, Brazil, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Thailand – were on track to meet the Unite for Children: Unite Against AIDS target of 80 per cent coverage for PMTCT by 2010, up from only 11 countries in 2005.

In addition, the number of HIV-positive children in low- and middle-income countries receiving antiretroviral treatment increased by 70 per cent from 2005 to 2006.

"Important gains have been made in addressing treatment needs for children and in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV," said UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot. "However much more needs to be done to prevent HIV amongst young people and adolescents if we are to make a major change in the direction of the epidemic."

Indicators show progress on the protection and care for children affected by AIDS in many countries and on access for these children to social services. Progress has also been made in school enrolment rates for children who have lost both parents to the disease, although AIDS-affected children are still more likely than other children to fall behind in school and to live in poorer households.

Since 2000-2001, in 11 of 15 countries for which sufficient data are available, HIV prevalence among pregnant women aged 15-24 attending antenatal clinics has declined.

The proportion of HIV-positive pregnant women receiving antiretrovirals to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their infants increased by 60 per cent from 2005 to 2006, but even with this increase, it is estimated that only 23 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women are receiving antiretrovirals.

"We are making progress but still face many challenges," says Dr. Kevin DeCock, Director of the World Health Organization's HIV Division. "Critically, we must provide antiretroviral treatment for women who require it for their own health, which will save their lives but also assure a future for their children. To achieve all this, health systems and their most precious component, the health care workforce, must be strengthened."

Most of the 2.1 million children under 15 living with HIV in 2007 were infected before their birth, during delivery or while breastfeeding. And young people aged 15-24 still account for about 40 per cent of the new HIV infections among all people over 15 in 2007.

While the news is mixed, the report argues that achieving an AIDS-free generation is possible. Although funding gaps persist, governments and donors alike are allocating more resources to prevention, treatment and protection efforts. In 2007, some $10 billion were available to combat AIDS, up from $6.1 billion in 2004.

The priority is now to implement new initiatives and scale up those that have already been tested and proven effective.

The report calls for action to:

• Strengthen communities and families whose role is crucial to every aspect of a child-centered approach to AIDS

• Reinforce health, education and social welfare systems which are key to effective interventions to support children affected by HIV and AIDS

• Integrate services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission in maternal, newborn and child health-care programmes

• Consolidate data and measurement in order to document advances and shortfalls and strengthen commitment.

Source: UNICEF http://www.unicef.org