The Right to Water
By www.Shaan-Ali.blogspot.com - 2008.
Some might think water is an environmental issue, and it is, but it is much more of a health issue. Human life, indeed all life, is impossible without water.
In North America we take water for granted. In addition to drinking, we also cook, clean, bottle and sell water like a commodity. Twenty years ago the idea of selling bottled water was considered silly. Many of us still consider it silly, but people still seem to buy it anyway.
Part of the reason is nobody seems to TRUST tap water lately. The bottled water companies have propogated the myth that tap water is somehow dangerous, despite the fact we use it for cooking our spaghetti, making Kool-Aid and even Coca-Cola/Pepsi/etc. You'd think the Soda Pop companies would at least boil the water, but nope they don't. Its just regular tap water mixed with sugar, caffeine and Vanilla flavour. (On a side note we wish they would bring back Vanilla Coke, that stuff was better than the regular Coke.)
They have also managed to convince people that bottled water somehow tastes better. It doesn't. Water is tasteless. The only time it might taste different if its been sitting in the sun too long and becomes stagnant.
Fact: Over 1.1 billion people on the Earth don't have access to safe drinking water.
So in response to the water companies a worldwide movement has been growing to declare water a human right. The idea is simple: People need water to survive, therefore water should be FREE and provided to citizens of the world by their individual governments.
Numerous human rights institutions and several countries, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, have declared water a right, and there's currently a motion before the United Nations calling for all countries to agree to make water a human right. The World Health Organization (WHO), the U.N.'s specialized agency for health, is also advocating for countries to accept water as a human right.
The United Nations expects countries to take the necessary steps to ensure that people can enjoy sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable/free water, without discrimination. Governments are also expected to take reasonable steps to avoid a contaminated water supply and to ensure that citizens are treated equally with their access to water.
Fact: Selling clean water is a $425 billion US / year industry, making it second only to the oil industry.
Countries in South America, Africa and Asia are the most effected by greedy companies trying to/succeeding in commodifying water. Most of the countries are actually owned by American or European stockholders, and because the companies are trying to please their stockholders they aim to sell the water for the most possible profitable, which means people who are poor can't afford clean water, will become ill from drinking contaminated water and possibly die.
Fact: Over 70% of the Earth is covered with water, but less than 1% is safe drinking water.
There's also been numerous documentaries about water, including "Flow: For Love of Water" in 2008 which also features Bolivia's water crisis, in addition to showing how water is becoming a problem around the world and even in the United States.
And Hollywood is not the only group that has historically has been concerned about water. Religious groups have long proclaimed the sacredness of water, not just for baptism in Christianity or bathing in Islam, but just in general sacred due to its life giving properties. A land without water is a land without life.
Conflict over water is another growing concern, especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East where water scarcity is becoming such a problem that groups and even countries are now going to war over resources: Food, water, oil. They're all part of the bigger problems of overpopulation, climate change and scarcity.
India, China and the United States are the largest users of freshwater resources. India uses 645.84 cubic kilometers/year, China 549.76 cubic kilometers/year, USA 477 cubic kilometers/year. Together the three countries use more freshwater than the rest of the world combined. A cubic kilometer of water weighs one billion metric tonnes or 2.205 trillion pounds.
In the USA and similar western countries we waste a lot of water for washing dishes, taking showers, etc. because here freshwater is plentiful and we're not worried about running out because our population is low enough that its currently sustainable. In China and India however they use so much water because of overpopulation and a growing infrastructure/economy that requires water for chemical processes and growing everyday needs.
In countries where water is scarce however they use every drop of freshwater they can find, and they certainly don't waste it giving the dog a bath or swimming in it, hence the lack of using water for sanitation. Its simply too precious to be deliberately polluted and discarded.
And trying to sell water as a commodity to be wasted on the rich... well, that's just greedy and disrespectful to your fellow human beings, and it will be no surprise when people go to war over it.
If you like This post Please Click on LIKE to appreciated us
ê.
South Africa passes same-sex marriage
Homosexuality still taboo on continent
Critics call move `sad' and `satanic'
CLARE NULLIS - ASSOCIATED PRESS - November 15th 2006.
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA—South African lawmakers passed legislation recognizing gay marriages yesterday despite criticism from both traditionalists and gay activists.
The bill, unprecedented on a continent where homosexuality is taboo, was decried by gay activists for not going far enough and by opponents who warned it "was provoking God's anger.''
Veterans of the governing African National Congress praised the Civil Union Bill for extending basic freedoms to everyone under the spirit of the country's first post-apartheid constitution adopted a decade ago.
"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust, painful past by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of colour, creed, culture and sex," Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula declared yesterday.
South Africa's constitution was the first in the world to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, providing a powerful legal tool to gay rights activists even though South Africa remains conservative on such issues.
A Christian lawmaker, Kenneth Meshoe, said yesterday was the "saddest day in our 12 years of democracy" and warned that South Africa "was provoking God's anger.''
Homosexuality is illegal in most sub-Saharan countries. Some countries also are debating constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriages. Even in South Africa, gays and lesbians are often attacked because of their sexual orientation.
One church leader in Nigeria, Apostle Abraham Umoh of the Mount of Victory Mission, denounced the vote as "satanic."
The Roman Catholic Church and many traditionalist leaders in South Africa said the measure denigrated the sanctity of marriages between men and women.
To ease some of these concerns, the bill allowed both religious and civil officers to refuse to marry same-sex couples on moral grounds.
The National Assembly passed the bill 230-41 with three abstentions.
 |
| Lesbian couple Bathini Dambuza, left, and Lindiwe Radebe, right, show off their engagement rings as they pose for a photo graph on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg yesterday. South Africa passed a bill recognizing gay marriage. |
Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and most other sub-Saharan countries. Some countries are debating constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriages. Even in South Africa, gays and lesbians often are attacked because of their sexual orientation.
One church leader in Nigeria, Apostle Abraham Umoh of the Mount of Victory Mission, denounced the vote as "satanic."
The Roman Catholic Church and many traditionalist leaders in South Africa said the measure denigrated the sanctity of marriages between men and women.
To ease some of those concerns, the bill would allow both religious and civil officers to refuse to marry same-sex couples on moral grounds.
Gay-rights groups criticized that "opt-out" clause, saying they should be treated the same as heterosexual couples, but in general they praised the new measure.
"It demonstrates powerfully the commitment of our lawmakers to ensuring that all human beings are treated with dignity," said Fikile Vilakazi of the Joint Working Group, a national network of 17 gay and lesbian organizations.
The bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or civil union," without specifying whether they are heterosexual or homosexual partnerships.
The National Assembly passed the bill 230-41. The measure now goes to the National Council of Provinces, which is expected to be a formality, before being signed into law by President Thabo Mbeki.
The bill was drafted to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling last December that said existing marriage legislation was unconstitutional because it discriminated against same-sex couples. The court set a Dec. 1 deadline for parliament to change the law.
Rather than change existing marriage laws, the government introduced the additional civil union bill, hoping that would be the speediest option.
Clergy's anger at gay marriage law
WENDELL ROELF AND CELEAN JACOBSON IN JOHANNESBURG
SOUTH Africa's parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday to make the nation the first on the continent to legalise gay marriage.
The bill was pushed through the National Assembly by the ruling African National Congress amid protests by religious groups and opposition parties in a region where homosexuality remains largely taboo.
The cabinet approved the bill in August after the country's highest court ruled it was unconstitutional to deny gay people the right to marry.
The court gave parliament until 1 December to change the law. The Civil Union Bill, which gives same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual ones, still needs approval by the second house of parliament. However, it is expected to come into effect by the end of November.
When enacted, South Africa will accord homosexual couples over the age of 18 the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, following countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Canada.
"When we attained our democracy, we sought to distinguish ourselves from an unjust painful past, by declaring that never again shall it be that any South African will be discriminated against on the basis of colour, creed, culture and sex," Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the home affairs minister, told parliament.
Yesterday, Lindiwe Radebe and Bathini Dambuza welcomed the news. Engaged for a year, they now want to take their relationship to the next step.
The couple from Soweto hope to be among the first gay people to take advantage of the new law. "I can't wait," said Ms Radebe, 25, an activist with the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, which supports black lesbians.
Ms Dambuza, 22, a tour guide, wears an engagement ring that Ms Radebe gave her about a year after they met.
Getting married will change their lives, they said. "For some people marriage means nothing, it is just a piece of paper. But we want that symbolism of having a legally binding document of our love," said Ms Radebe.
The couple are keen to have children and hope that by getting married it will be easier to adopt or become parents.
If you like This post Please Click on LIKE to appreciated us
ê.
African Union, the Dominion of Africa, United Africa
| Background: The U.R.A. is not a new idea, its actually a much older one dating back to the 1960s and perhaps even further. Due to disputes between different countries, the idea has never truly got off the ground. The problem these days is that the players have changed, but many disputes are still there. The people involved in the politics have not realized that unification could be the answer to their problems.Geography & People: The people of Africa are united geographically, but within that geography the borders of countries and carved-up pieces of territorial land have created disputes over territory. By unifying into one larger republic or dominion, similar in concept to the United States or the European Union, the people would be unifying themselves as a singular continent, and thus be a much greater force to reckoned with. Separated, the people can be ignored and kept isolated by other larger/more powerful countries like the United States. As a larger unified group of nations, Africa would have more international power over its territory. Government: The republics of Africa would become more like individual provinces, governing over their own schools and their local economy. An unified federal government with a prime minister and multiple ministers from each republic. Thus a single group of leaders for all of Africa would be in place, and unlike a president, a prime minister can more easily be booted out of office due to corruption. Thus the system maintains its stability and fights corruption within its own ranks. This brand of democracy is already found in countries like Canada and Australia, where it has been proven to prevent widespread corruption. Economy & a Single Currency: Importing and exporting amongst themselves, African countries suffer from a lack of internal and external trade. By uniting as a single entity Africa will boost its inter-continental trade, and boost its internal trade system. By switching to a single currency for all of Africa internal trade will no longer have exchange problems, external trade will become more stable and reliable, and the economy will be boosted by record growth. Communications: There are two issues at stake here, one is electrical and the other is linguistics. Africa does not have an united language. 40% of the people in Africa speak English as their first language, but otherwise the languages are divided up into French, German and hundreds of native African languages and dialects. Those languages need to be preserved for historical reasons, but an official language will have to be recognized and taught in schools. For economical reasons, English would be the obvious choice, but a predominant African language (or several languages) might also be a good choice for cultural reasons, so that Africa is united under an indigenous African language. Scholarly, it would be possible to combine multiple African languages, plus some english into a new language and create an official African dictionary. It would be a linguistically challenge, but it is possible to do, and it would be a more patriotically unifying language. An United Africa would finally be able to create a continental-wide communications system for cellphones, internet and an unified African television network to showcase African-made tv shows and African-made films. Transportation: A better planned and transcontinental system of highways and railroads, along with better ferry services along coastal countries and on the Nile river. The end result would be to ease transportation, lower the cost of food and boost the overall economy of greater Africa.Tourism: Africa suffers from racism from other continents and a lack of tourism as a result. Part of the stigma is partially true due to the fact that war and conflict breaks out regularly amongst African countries. As an Unified Africa, internal civil wars and territorial disputes would be stopped, guns and militias eventually made useless under the weight of diplomacy and an United African Army. The end result would be a more peaceful continent and a continent more open to tourism. Military: An United African Army, an African Air Force, an African Navy, and perhaps the most important of all: An African Coastguard and a Federal African Police Network, to track smugglers and criminals within all of Africa. It would spell an end for criminal networks, militias and bring a sense of unity and pride to Africa as a whole. Plus, it would be cheaper to maintain a single larger military than to maintain many smaller military groups. Territorial Disputes: All territorial disputes within the internal republics would be solved diplomatically or made null and void, because the disputes would no longer be necessary amongst countries which are now economic allies. Disease: Controlling the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs would be a primary responsibility of an United Africa. Radical solutions may be needed, such as quarantined towns and cities where the infection rate is over 25%. Regular testing for diseases, a continental information network for controlling the diseases, and stronger federal programs to test for HIV and to promote the use of condoms in order to prevent HIV from spreading to others.The USA Factor: The United States doesn't want Africa to unify because then Africa will become a nuclear threat. As an united continent, Africa will have the technology and resources to build and test nuclear missiles. Since the Cold War, the United States has been supplying arms shipments to African countries and militias in order to maintain instability in Africa so that it will never unify. The fear during the Cold War has been that if Africa did unify, it might become a communist republic. Thus, it was the fear of a communist republic with nuclear weapon capability. Racism is also certainly a factor in the case of the United States, for many people in the Republican Party are also racists and have no interest in helping Africa and would much rather hinder it. For this reason, one of the primary duties of an United Africa will be to stop arms trade with the United States. Those weapons are fuelling wars, not stopping them. If you like This post Please Click on LIKE to appreciated us ê. |
 SOWETO, South Africa: She is two years and four months old, her first name means "acceptance" in Zulu, and if she were true to her name, she'd be dead by now. Instead, Samakilisewe Mthimkhulu is a chubby little girl, bursting with life. Barefoot, in a pair of hand-me-down red shorts and a red top, she wriggles on her mother's lap in the weathered little home they share along with five other children and a disease called AIDS, as the bronze winter sun drifts westward over Soweto. In order to keep death at bay, Samakilisewe is obliged to swallow a spoonful each of three liquid potions every morning, potions that bear the outlandish labels of faraway pharmaceutical firms: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline. She does her duty without a fuss. "She likes the medicine," insists her mother, Bongiwe, 32, who is HIV-positive herself, as are two more of her children. Only Samakilisewe so far has AIDS. "She even reminds me when it is time." Unfortunately, not all South Africans are so diligent, starting with the health minister. If she could, Samakilisewe would be perfectly justified in marching up to South Africa's minister of health and telling her to go take a flying leap into the nearest reservoir. Health Minister Mzanto Tshabalala-Msimang, following the lead of President Thabo Mbeki, continues to cast doubt on the efficacy of a new generation of drugs known as ARVs, or anti-retrovirals: drugs that have saved countless lives in Europe and North America and that now offer hope to millions in Africa, when they are available. In South Africa, for the most part, they are not. "It's bizarre, it's irresponsible, it borders on the criminal," says Nathan Geffen, spokesman for the Treatment Action Centre, a South African agency that lobbies for greater access to these life-saving drugs. "There are a number of obstacles, but the one that stands in the way is the lack of political will." The cavalier policies of the South African government constitute just one of the hurdles obstructing the provision of AIDS treatment in Africa, and they apply only to that country. For the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, governments are mostly willing but lack the means, the skilled personnel and the resources to make treatment widely available. A timely and generous response by wealthy donor nations might have gone a long distance toward alleviating the continent's plight, while saving millions of lives in the process, but that is not exactly what has happened. "The level of delinquency on the part of the western world is astonishing," says Stephen Lewis, the U.N. envoy for AIDS in Africa. "I feel quite frantic about it." As a result, in the part of the world that needs it most, ARV treatment has been late to begin, and distribution remains spotty and slow. Meanwhile, people are dying, people whose lives could easily be saved. Consider Samakilisewe Mthimkhulu, who as recently as this past March was gravely ill, thin as sticks, and drifting toward death, until she was put on ARVs. Beginning on the eighth day of March, she rose again. Since then, three white plastic bottles of medicine have made all the difference in the world to this one child in this one block of red-brick shelters located in this sprawling African suburb to the south of Johannesburg. Samakilisewe is a very fortunate girl, one of the fortunate and the few. Taken together, some 5.6 million of this republic's 44 million citizens are HIV-positive, possibly the largest concentration of such people in the world, challenged only by India. Of these people, roughly 700,000 now are sufficiently compromised by AIDS that they require anti-retroviral treatment or they will surely perish, long before their times, just as thousands in this country, and more than 17 million people in all of Africa have already done. At present, however, only about 40,000 South Africans are receiving ARVs, a minuscule proportion of the sick and dying, and a rate of treatment that is far eclipsed by nearly all of this country's much poorer and far less developed neighbours. Of all the problems that now confront this continent, none is more potentially catastrophic than this virus passed from blood to blood during sexual intercourse. Only a few years ago, there was no hope of saving millions of people already infected with HIV, and instead African governments and international aid agencies threw most of their energies into trying to stop new infections from occurring, itself a wrenchingly difficult task. Everyone now agrees that it is horrendously difficult to change people's behaviour, their cultural or sexual patterns, even when life and death are at stake. "Behaviour change is the biggest challenge in prevention," says Derek von Wissell, head of the government anti-AIDS program in Swaziland. "I don't think anybody has cracked the nut of behaviour change." Still, health authorities in a host of countries have done their best. They have issued dark warnings about the threat of AIDS. They have put on plays in schools, dramatizing the dangers of unprotected sex. They have sent former commercial sex workers into African beer halls armed with condoms and wooden dildos, to demonstrate to hordes of inebriated men how the two go together. They have promoted sexual abstinence and monogamy, and they still do. Prevention of new infections remains the central strategy in the struggle against AIDS in Africa. Yet millions of people continue to engage in unsafe sex, for many reasons. In many areas, condoms are simply not available. Besides, to people who are seriously hungry today, the potential consequences of HIV infection (death in eight or 10 years) might seem a somewhat distant and unreal prospect and therefore a poor disincentive. Finally, sex in Africa is not typically conducted between two equal and consenting adults. Women and girls are at a clear disadvantage both culturally and economically, and they rarely determine the terms of their relationships with men. Here in South Africa, at least one organization has eschewed the sort of bleak, moralistic warnings that have long been the staple of AIDS-prevention campaigns on the continent. "Our focus really is around positive lifestyles," says Scott Burnett, an official at LoveLife, a hip, upbeat AIDS-prevention agency in South Africa. "It's not about wearing condoms. It's about being positive about your future." The agency's edgy slogan is "Get attitude." "You, your future, your dreams," says Burnett. "That's our message." Here's hoping it works. In the meantime, however, people continue to contract and succumb to a disease whose ability to kill is proving even more formidable than the experts used to believe, and that is saying plenty. "The early theories were that it couldn't hit 40 per cent," von Wissell says. "That is now thrown out the window." In several southern African countries, including Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, 40 per cent and more of the adult population have already been infected. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are not far behind. If there were a cure for AIDS or a vaccination against the disease, then almost everything would change. But, so far, there is neither. For Africa, for now, the best hope resides in just three bottles of pills, multiplied over and over again, the standard triple-drug regimen of anti-retrovirals that is already saving and enhancing tens of thousands of lives on the continent. Unless you happen to be the South African minister of health, the effectiveness of these medicines is impossible to deny. Tshabalala-Msimang would be well advised to pay a visit to Cotlands, an AIDS orphanage located in Turffontein in the south end of Johannesburg, where there are always at least 60 youngsters prancing about the brightly lit corridors or resting in the dormitories, with their Shrek 2 bedspreads and stuffed animals. "I'm a firm believer in anti- retroviral treatment," says Allison Gallo, who works at the orphanage. "I've seen the condition of our kids improve dramatically." The orphanage's facilities include an 18-bed hospice, where staff workers provide palliative care for seriously ill children, some of whom are in the final stages of AIDS. A few youngsters, unable to breathe on their own, are hooked up to oxygen tanks. Others are excruciatingly thin, the epitome of starving babies. Prior to the introduction of ARV treatment at Cotlands, the orphanage was losing children to AIDS at the rate of three or four a week, says Gallo. There was nothing to do but care for them until they died. What a difference a few drugs make. So far this year, only five children at the orphanage have died of AIDS, a nearly miraculous turnaround. "Many children come in looking really dreadful, and we don't think there's much hope," says Gallo. "But, after a few weeks, there's a tremendous difference." In many poor African countries, the will exists to provide treatment for AIDS, but there is a woeful lack of "capacity": physical and organizational resources and skilled people to make use of them. In Malawi, for example, there are just 350 or so doctors in a population of about 12 million people. Only two of those doctors are pediatricians. In Swaziland, ARVs are available at only five government hospitals, where they are provided free of charge. But that's not much help if you live in the country's eastern lowlands, where the nearest government hospital is in Manzini, a four-hour bus ride away. The journey costs 20 emalangeni, equivalent to about $3.65 (Canadian) or 15 per cent of the average rural-dweller's monthly income. And so people die. But the dead do not include Nokhwezi Hoboyi, even if she has lost two newborn children to AIDS. The young Cape Town woman was infected with HIV in 1998, but her doctor refused to tell her so. She lost her first baby, then another, and finally became very ill herself. By 2002, she was passing out at work, and it was only then she found out that she had AIDS and she was dying. She would have died, too, were it not for ARVs. Now she takes two pills in the morning, three at night. "A lot of people have died without being able to access treatment," she says. "They have died without knowing their options." And, by the tens of thousands, Africans continue to die, deprived of the medicine that surely could save them. "I have improved," says Hoboyi who, at age 25, has a long life ahead of her. "I feel very much great." But she is one of the fortunate, the fortunate and the few. If you like This post Please Click on LIKE to appreciated us ê. |
