generalspeaking

World News, August 2009

A Zambian editor who sent a government official pictures of a woman giving birth without medical help to highlight health-care issues appeared in court yesterday charged with circulating pornography.
Kenneth Ngosa, senior private secretary to George Kunda, the Zambian Vice-President, testified that Chansa Kabweia had sent him a complaint about a doctor's strike that had forced a woman to give birth outside a hospital. By the time help arrived, the baby had died from suffocation.
"In the letter, there were three pictures of a woman giving birth. I was hesitant to give them to the Vice-President because he is my boss, but since he insisted I did give him the letter with the pictures", Mr. Ngosa told the court. "The vice-President was annoyed with what he saw and said he has never seen such pictures."
Ms. Kabwela,news editor of the independent Post newspaper was arrested after she passed the images to local women's groups and the Vice-President's office. They were never published in the paper. Rupiah Banda, the Zambian President, was angered by the photographs and during a news conference last month ordered police to arrest the person responsible for them.
One of the images, seen by Agence France-Presse, show a young woman, each of her arms wrapped around one of two women supporting her in an upright position. Her legs are splayed open, with a baby's lower body - neck down - protruding. A second shot shows a close up of the baby still stuck in a breech position as the mother lies on the ground in distress.
Breech babies, born feet or buttocks first, can often be saved by a Caesarean section, but the doctors' strike for improvements to the quality of public clinics and hospitals - meant there was no one to perform the surgery. Agence France-Presse, with files from news services

Geoffrey Michael Campbell - convicted killer, dangerous offender and a "monster" in the eyes of the family of one of his victims - pleaded guilty yesterday to first-degree murder for killing Maribeth Williams more than a decade ago in her Windsor apartment.
He wanted to know how it would feel to kill someone. So he choked his young girlfriend, who was just 16, until her face turned blue. He left her infant son alone with the body.
"I intended to kill her", according to a statement of facts read out in court. "I had it in my mind that night that I would kill somebody. I wanted to know what it would be like to kill somebody." The couple had just had intercourse. Campbell told police that Ms. Williams was resting her head on his chest and asked why his heart was beating so fast. He later told police his heart rate was up because he was about to kill her.
"I will carry the guilt of a father who wasn't there to protect my daughter in the moment that she needed me most" her father told Campbell in court. "She needed to be protected from this monster."
Campbell, 31, and now incarcerated in a Special Holding Unit in Quebec, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. His convictions include throwing a knife at a man's head after the man came to the aid of one of Campbell's former girlfriends; assaulting another girlfriend; assaulting police officers; possessing a stolen car involved in a high-speed police chase; pointing a sawed-off shotgun at an acquaintance and conspiring to rob drug dealers. While incarcerated, he was convicted of arson and assault, uttering death threats and possession of a weapon. In 2000, Campbell aimed a stolen car at Frank Groves, a 65-year-old retiree out for a bicycle ride. He later laughed while watching news coverage of the fatal hit-and-run. Canwest News Service.

Almost half of Afghanistan is at a high risk of attack by the Taliban and other insurgents or is under "enemy control", a secret Afghan government map shows, painting a dire security picture before the August 20 presidential elections. the threat assessment map shows 133 of the country's 356 districts are high-risk areas, with at least thirteen under "enemy control". The map, which bears the logos of the Afghan Interior Ministry, the army and the UN Department of Safety and Security was produced in April, before a dramatic escalation of violence. The Taliban's traditional strongholds have been in the south and east, but the influence has steadily spread to the west and north, even to the outskirts of Kabul. Reuters.

A cargo ship carrying 1,477 tons of waste, including used condoms, syringes and diapers, left Brazil on Wednesday to return the illegal trash to Britain, Brazilian officials said. The 81 containers of waste banned for transport under a 1991 Basel Convention had piled up on Brazilian docks since the end of 2008, improperly labelled as plastic for recycling. Brazilian police discovered the domestic waste, some of it hazardous, in June. Another 150 tons still remain in the port of Rio Grande do Sul awaiting transport, Brazil's environmental agency said.

A string of attacks on Mexico's northern border left 14 dead, including one headless body among five corpses dumped in a truck in Ciudad Juarez, police said Wednesday. The violent city across the border from El Paso, Texas, saw 14 killed in the latest attacks suspected to be linked to organized crime, authorities said. Some 9,600 people have died in suspected drug violence since the start of 2008, mainly in northern border areas, according to reports.

A defiant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mocked and ridiculed western leaders as he was sworn in Wednesday for his second term as president of Iran. the U.S., Britain, Canada, France and Germany all stated they would not send congratulatory letters, and only Britain and the European Union sent diplomatic representatives to Wednesday's ceremony. (!?!)
"We heard that some of the western leaders have decided to recognize but not congratulate the new government", Ahmadinejad told the Iranian parliament as hundreds of protesters gathered outside to shout their outrage at a man accused of illegitimately winning the June election. "Well, no one in Iran (was) waiting for your messages. The Iranian nation neither values your scowls and threats, nor your smiles and greetings."

The Fatah party, which is meeting in Bethlehem, beat the incitement drum Thursday and accused Israel of being responsible for the “assassination” of Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.
Arabs have routinely accused Israel of having poisoned Arafat, but the statement in Ramallah by former Arafat advisor Bassam Abu Sharif is the first time the party officially has outright blamed Israel.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas opened the convention in Bethlehem earlier this week by saying that a probe should be carried out to determine how Arafat died.
Abu Sharif said, "There is a real nonfeasance in having a real and serious probe and get to the truth that everyone is eager to know. I'm ready to supply any inquiry committee with all needed answers related to the circumstances of assassinating Yasser Arafat.”
Arafat died after his physical condition had deteriorated; he was hospitalized in isolation for two weeks and died while being treated in France. The shroud of security and secrecy at the time prevented any reliable medical reports from being known, although French doctors who were treating him never alluded to his having been poisoned.
The issue of Arafat’s death resurfaced last month when exiled Fatah leader Farouk Kadoumi charged that Abbas and Fatah’s Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan were involved in an Israeli plot to kill Arafat. Arutz Sheva

Labels: Human Fallibility, Human Relations, Human Rights, World News

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, August 06, 2009