These clowns just got the chair on a U.N. panel on sustainable developement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070517/bs_afp/zimbabweeconomyinflationprices
"The... annual inflation rate at the end of April rose to 3,713.9 percent," the state-run Herald newspaper reported Thursday quoting figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
"This means prices rose about 36-fold between the end of April last year and the same day this year," it said.
Is it absurd to have a member of Maximum-Bobs™ government as a chair of panel on sustainable develpement? If not, why not?
Originally posted by MerkMany things are absurb about the UN, it is not surprising as its structure is that countries just vote for their own selfish motives.
These clowns just got the chair on a U.N. panel on sustainable developement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070517/bs_afp/zimbabweeconomyinflationprices
"The... annual inflation rate at the end of April rose to 3,713.9 percent," the state-run Herald newspaper reported Thursday quoting figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
"This means ...[text shortened]... f Maximum-Bobs™ government as a chair of panel on sustainable develpement? If not, why not?
The security council and the veto further condemns it to a gravy train that reacts to little.
It is another body that promotes bearocracy and centralisation of government. All these things lead to corruption.
But much can be said of most Gov. institutions.
The UN IS doing a lot for Iraq and has currently been hitting some good areas with help...........
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/08/iraq.refugees/index.html
Also the red cross........
http://www.redcross.org/article/0,1072,0_312_2669,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/ ðŸ˜
ICRC deplores worsening humanitarian crisis in Iraq
www.chinaview.cn 2007-04-12 08:25:44
Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq
GENEVA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed on Wednesday alarm about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Iraq and called for urgent action to protect civilians against the continuing violence.
In a report entitled "Civilians without protection - The ever-worsening crisis in Iraq", the ICRC deplored the daily acts of violence that "directly target Iraqi civilians in clear violation of international humanitarian law and other applicable legal standards."
While it argued that the current crisis directly or indirectly affects all Iraqis, the report focused on the problems of vulnerable groups such as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis forced to flee their homes and the families that host them.
The report documented the alarming state of Iraqi health-care facilities suffering critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened, it said.
The report also underlined that much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition owing to lack of maintenance and because security constraints have impeded repair work.
"The suffering that Iraqi men, women and children are enduring today is unbearable and unacceptable. Their lives and dignity are continuously under threat," said the ICRC's director of operations, Pierre Kraehenbuhl.
"The ICRC calls on all those who can influence the situation on the ground to act now to ensure that the lives of ordinary people are spared and protected. This is an obligation under international humanitarian law for both States and non-State actors," Kraehenbuhl told reporters in Geneva.
Iraq's health status under occupation is nothing short of disastrous
By Dr. Bert De Belder
Global Research, April 6, 2007
Al Ahram Weekly
After repeatedly topping the Arab health index, Iraq's health record is now worse than ever because of the US-led occupation. The general effect on the Iraqi population amounts to a massive war crime, writes Bert De Belder
Iraq's health status, four years into the occupation, is nothing short of disastrous. Iraq's health index has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, says Joseph Chamie, former director of the United Nations Population Division and an Iraq specialist. People's health status is determined by social, economic and environmental factors much more than by the availability of healthcare. Not surprisingly, all these factors have deteriorated in the course of the occupation.
A recent UNDP-backed study reveals that one-third of Iraqis live in poverty, with more than five per cent living in abject poverty. The UN agency observes that this contrasts starkly with the country's thriving middle- income economy of the 1970s and 1980s. But these figures may well be a grave underestimation, as other reports speak of eight million out of 28 million Iraqis living in extreme poverty on incomes of less than $1 per day. More than 500, 000 Baghdad residents get water for only a few hours a day. And the majority of Iraqis get three hours of electricity a day, in contrast to pre-war levels of about 20 hours.
THE DEVASTATED HEALTH OF IRAQI CHILDREN:
The combination of sanctions, war and occupation has resulted in Iraq showing the world's worst evolution in child mortality: from an under-five mortality rate of 50 per 1000 live births in 1990, to 125 in 2005. That means an annual deterioration of 6.1 per cent -- a world record, well behind very poor and AIDS- affected Botswana. At the outset of the 2003 war, the US administration pledged to cut Iraq's child mortality rate in half by 2005. But the rate has continued to worsen, to 130 in 2006, according to Iraqi Health Ministry figures.
Nutrition is, of course, vital to health. According to the United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF), about one in 10 Iraqi children under five are underweight (acutely malnourished) and one in five are short for their age (chronically malnourished) . But this is only the tip of the iceberg, according to Claire Hajaj, communications officer at the UNICEF Iraq Support Centre in Amman. "Many Iraqi children may also be suffering from 'hidden hunger' -- deficiencies in critical vitamins and minerals that are the building blocks for children's physical and intellectual development, " Hajaj says. "These deficiencies are hard to measure, but they make children much more vulnerable to illness and less likely to thrive at school." Hayder Hussainy, a senior official at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, states that approximately 50 per cent of Iraqi children suffer from some form of malnourishment.
Also important is the psychological impact of war and occupation. In a study entitled "The Psychological Effects of War on Iraqis", the Association of Iraqi Psychologists (AIP) reports that out of 2, 000 people interviewed in all 18 Iraqi provinces, 92 per cent said they feared being killed in an explosion. Some 60 per cent of those interviewed said the level of violence had caused them to have panic attacks, which prevented them from going out because they feared they would be the next victims. The AIP also surveyed over 1, 000 children across Iraq and found that 92 per cent of children examined had learning impediments, largely attributable to the current climate of fear and insecurity. "The only thing they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the US occupation, " says the AIP's Marwan Abdullah.
HOSPITALS AND CLINICS FACED WITH A CRITICAL LACK OF RESOURCES:
On 19 January 2007, a group of some 100 eminent UK doctors signed a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to voice their grave concern over the fate of Iraq's children. The statement read: "We are concerned that children are dying in Iraq for want of medical treatment. Sick or injured children, who could otherwise be treated by simple means, are left to die in their hundreds because they do not have access to basic medicines or other resources. Children who have lost hands, feet, and limbs are left without prostheses. Children with grave psychological distress are left untreated."
The Iraq Medical Association reports that 90 per cent of the almost 180 hospitals in Iraq lack essential equipment. At Yarmouk Hospital, one of the busiest hospitals in Baghdad, five people die on average every day because medics and nurses don't have the equipment to treat common ills and accidents, according to Yarmouk doctor Hussam Abboud. That translates to more than 1, 800 preventable deaths in a year in that hospital alone.
Hassan Abdallah, a senior health official in the Basra Governorate, says that information suggests that from January to July 2006, about 90 children died in Basra as result of the lack of medicine, a worse figure than for the same period last year, when some 40 children died for similar reasons. Marie Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the Vienna-based aid agency Saving Children from War, deplores the lack of essential supplies, especially intravenous infusions and blood bags. "Children are dying because there are no blood bags available, " says Fernandez.
HOSPITALS SUBJECT TO MILITARY ATTACKS AND OCCUPATION:
"The Geneva Conventions state that hospitals are and should remain neutral and accessible to everybody, particularly civilians. Yet, when it's occupied by armed groups or official forces, people don't have this free and humanitarian access, " says Cedric Turlan, information officer for the Coordinating Committee in Iraq (NCCI) NGO. His observation is corroborated by numerous reports and sources.
In the first week of November 2006, in Ramadi, some 115 kilometres west of Baghdad, 13 civilians entering the hospital to get treatment were killed by snipers. Less than 10 per cent of the hospital's staff was still working there when US-led forces burst into the hospital many times day and night, looking for snipers on the hospital's roof. "The multinational forces were outside, surrounding the hospital, but they intruded into the hospital on a daily basis, " Turlan said. "Now people rarely go to the hospital because they fear being shot or arrested."
For several months now, patients have refrained from using the hospital for fear of being shot by snipers or by US-led forces. According to other reports received by NCCI, military forces have also occupied Mosul Hospital, and ambulances have been attacked regularly in Najaf, Fallujah and other parts of Anbar.
On 7 December 2006, there was yet another US military raid at the Fallujah General Hospital that had suffered similar attacks during various US siege operations in the city in April and November 2004. Eyewitnesses said US soldiers raided the hospital "as if it were a military target". Doctors and medical staff were arrested, insulted and called terrorists. A hospital employee said that it was already the third time he was handcuffed by US soldiers, and alleged that "they have been more vicious with medical staff than with others because they consider us the first supporters of those they call terrorists." US Lt Col Bryan Salas, spokesperson of Multinational Forces-Iraq, had quite a different explanation: "Coalition forces searched the hospital to ensure that it continues to be a safe place for the citizens of Fallujah to receive the medical treatment they deserve." After the US military raid, the hospital remained closed for several days.
GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN ATTACKS AND FAILING HEALTH:
With current Minister of Health Ali Al-Shimari belonging to the political movement of Moqtada Al-Sadr, the latter's military arm, the Mahdi Army, is acting inside hospitals with impunity. Sick and wounded patients have been abducted from public hospitals and later killed. As a consequence, more and more Iraqis are avoiding hospitals. "We would prefer to die instead of going to the hospital, " says Abu Nasr, a resident of a Baghdad suburb. "The hospitals have become killing fields."
The ministry also appears to discriminate in the provision of supplies. Tariq Hiali, a health official in Baqouba (60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad), laments that "the Ministry of Health is not providing us with medications and medical equipment -- they consider us to be terrorists." An employee at Baqouba's blood bank, Jamal Qadoori, says: "Ambulances we send to Baghdad are being intercepted by the Mahdi Army."
The emergency unit in the Basra Teaching Hospital was closed for five months after unidentified assailants killed a number of doctors working there. Now many doctors and nurses refuse to go to work, fearing for their lives. Likewise, clinics have shut down in Ramadi, Hit, Haditha and Fallujah. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting states that in Baghdad, those doctors still practicing have moved their clinics into residential areas or inside medical compounds for safety reasons. They only open in the morning, because of curfews and poor security.
HEALTH WORKERS HARASSED, ARRESTED AND ASSASSINATED:
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 18 reads: "Civilian hospitals organised to care for the wounded and sick, infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict." On-the-ground reality in Iraq today is quite different.
"A major problem affecting Iraq's health sector is the country's desperate security situation, " says Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "Armed men storm operating theatres forcing d...
Iraq Conference: UNHCR convenes humanitarian conference on Iraqis forced from their homes
16 Apr 2007 16:34:12 GMT
Source: UNHCR
Iraq in turmoil
More GENEVA, April 16 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Tuesday convenes a two-day conference involving more than 60 nations focused on the deepening humanitarian crisis of the nearly 4 million Iraqis who have been displaced by the conflict in their homeland.
"We should not expect this conference to be a miracle medicine, a magic response to the difficult humanitarian crisis that many Iraqis face, whether those who are internally displaced inside Iraq or those refugees who left Iraq for one of the neighbouring countries," said Radhouane Nouicer, director of the Middle East and North Africa bureau of UNHCR.
"But we certainly intend and hope that this conference will contribute to raising the awareness of the world to the humanitarian crisis that faces Iraq and Iraqi refugees as a result of the difficult security situation in their country," he said.
The conference on the humanitarian needs of nearly 4 million refugees and displaced people in Iraq and surrounding countries, chaired by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, has attracted more than 450 participants from governments and international and non-governmental organisations. The world is facing the largest displacement of people in the Middle East since the conflict triggered by the creation of Israel in 1948.
Guterres will be joined in the opening session by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes; UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq Ashraf Qazi; and the Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Angelo Gnaedinger. Participants also will see a video message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
UNHCR hopes the conference will lead to creation of an international partnership to meet the growing needs of the Iraqi displaced and ensure support for the neighbouring countries that have so far borne most of the burden.
Some 1.9 million Iraqis are now displaced inside their country and up to 2 million others have fled abroad. The greatest number are hosted by Syria, with 1.2 million, and Jordan, with 750,00, but there are also an estimated 100,000 in Egypt, 54,000 in Iran, 40,000 in Lebanon and 10,000 in Turkey.
Many Iraqis had fled before the fall of the Saddam Hussein government in 2003, but between 2003 and 2005 more than 300,000 Iraqis had returned home. That trend reversed, especially after the bombing of a revered Shiite holy site in Samarra 14 months ago. Since then some 800,000 Iraqis have fled their homes and displacement is continuing at the rate of up to 50,000 people a month.
UNHCR says it is vital to keep the borders to neighbouring countries open for Iraqis who need to flee and for the international community to ensure that Iraqi refugees are treated with respect and receive protection. Support for the Iraqi refugees – and their host countries – must continue until they feel safe to repatriate. Many Iraqis who had fled have exhausted their own resources and are now in desperate condition.
"The protection of these people from refoulement [forcible return to Iraq], bad treatment or hunger or deprivation – these are the objectives of UNHCR," said Nouicer.
UNHCR says the huge number of Iraqi refugees means they cannot be permanently integrated into the host countries. Most will be eventually repatriated but the UN refugee agency wants other countries to provide an increased number of places for the permanent resettlement of Iraqis who are most at risk and will not be able to return home.
Conditions are even worse for Palestinian refugees who have been forced from homes they had inside Iraq – becoming refugees again. They have faced continual harassment since the end of the previous government and many are now stranded in desolate camps at the border – afraid to remain in Iraq, but barred from entering neighbouring countries which already house millions of Palestinian refugees.
UNHCR acknowledges it is very hard to operate inside Iraq but emphasises that everything possible must be done to stem the displacement of Iraqis from their homes and the further outflow of refugees which could create another long-term refugee problem in the Middle East.
Iraq Pledges $25M to Help Refugees
By FRANK JORDANS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 18, 2007; 11:10 PM
GENEVA -- The head of the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday a decision by Iraq to assist its citizens who have fled the country was "a major step forward to allow for people to keep their hope alive."
Speaking at the end of a two-day international conference, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Baghdad's pledge to spend $25 million assisting Iraqis in Syria and Jordan was "a major change in the pattern of relations in the region and in the prospects for refugees in the area."
"My government embraces its duty toward its citizens, wherever they are, and we will not abandon them," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.
The money will be spent on education, health and housing programs for refugees.
The Iraqi government has insisted that the 2 million refugees abroad _ mostly in Syria and Jordan _ and 1.9 million who have fled to other parts of Iraq will eventually return to their homes.
But according to U.N. statistics, up to 50,000 people are still leaving the country every month, and tens of thousands more are internally displaced.
According to the World Health Organization, the exodus of qualified doctors and nurses from Iraq has contributed to an acute health care crisis.
The Iraqi government estimates that almost seven in 10 people arriving in emergency rooms die due to shortage of competent staff and lack of drugs and equipment, WHO said.
Guterres said all sides meeting in Geneva agreed that it was not safe for Iraqi refugees to return to their country at the moment, and that forced return was out of the question.
UNHCR also strongly objected to the suggestion by some countries in the region that camps be set up inside Iraq to house the growing number of people trying to flee.
"The idea that people should be prevented to leave ... by keeping them as prisoners in a camp inside the country is something we are clearly against," Guterres said.
Top U.N. officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, has called for Iraq's neighbors to leave the door open to those seeking refuge.
The conference brought together countries from the region as well as richer nations further away that have been accused of not doing enough to help ease the refugee crisis.
Before the meeting, groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch asked the United States, Britain and other Western nations to increase the number of Iraqis allowed to settle permanently in their countries.
While few concrete pledges were made, the United States has said it expects UNHCR to refer some 7,000 of the most vulnerable refugees for permanent resettlement by the end of September.
Ellen Sauerbrey, who heads the U.S. State Department's refugee affairs bureau, told The Associated Press that this number could double to about 4,000 by the end of the year if UNHCR is able to refer that many refugees.
In addition, the U.S. pledged $18 million toward UNHCR's $60 million appeal for its Iraq operation this year, which the agency says has now been met.
Millions in Iraq to get MMR jab
The campaign is aimed at protecting children
A major immunisation campaign is to take place in Iraq in a bid to prevent an outbreak of measles.
The World Health Organization and Unicef are overseeing the work of 8,000 volunteers who aim to give up to 3.9 million children the MMR vaccine.
The children, aged one to five, have missed out on their routine jabs because of the instability in Iraq.
Health experts warn measles could kill up to 10% of infected children if an epidemic took hold.
This vaccine will certainly save many young lives
Roger Wright, Unicef
While measles in countries like the UK is often perceived as a relatively harmless childhood illness, it kills more worldwide each year than any other disease which can be prevented by vaccination.
Iraq's Ministry of Health is organising the two-week MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunisation campaign, which is also being funded by the European Commission.
'Window of opportunity'
Dr Naeema Al-Ghasser, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative for Iraq, said: "All children between 12-59 months everywhere in Iraq need to be immunised, even if they have had the vaccine before.
"The vaccine is safe and effective, and gives lifelong immunity against measles."
Roger Wright, Unicef special representative for Iraq added: "The timing of this MMR campaign is critical.
"This vaccine will certainly save many young lives and we are calling on everyone in Iraq to ensure vaccinators reach children safely over the next two weeks."
The campaign is part of Iraq's Measles Elimination Plan, which has so far reduced the incidence of measles cases nearly 20-fold - from 9,181 in 2004 to under 500 last year.
However, the country's growing humanitarian crisis has added to the challenges, increasing the risks for vaccinators and making it harder to calculate numbers of children to immunise.
There is particular concern about reaching children in the most violent parts of Baghdad, Diyala and Anbar.
Dr Al-Ghasser said: "We have a short window of opportunity to give children lifelong protection against a dangerous disease. This MMR campaign must proceed unhindered and unite everyone for children's sake."
Unicef recently called for increased funding for its work in Iraq. It says it urgently needs an initial $20m - of which only 11% has been received to date.