President Barack Obama(above)

Now the family in Kenya have decided, enough is enough on the secrets surounding their beloved son, Barack Hussein Obama.

His half brother accepted to reveal details about Obama’s birthplace and citizenship because, as he puts it, “we are a family and not ashamed to let the world know the truth now that the truth will not do any harm since he is already elected president”.

According to the family, Obama has already been elected President and if he were to be indicted in order to force him to resign, it will not matter because he has already made a mark in the world showing that a black man can also become the President of the only remaining powerful nation in the world.

The full interview:

 The full interview between API and Obama’s half brother to be published immediately after easter will clear the air on the questions many have been interested to have in the open. It is clear that the brother has decided to do the interview and put questional things out in the open due to what analysts believe is due to growing family dispute about land ownership in the village, Kogelo in Kenya.

API

Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN

Silué Korotoum says she now engages with people as never before and is eager to continue her studies and find a new job

KORHOGO,  – In February Silué Korotoum, 34, was the first woman to have obstetric fistulas repaired under a UN Population Fund (UNFPA)-sponsored programme at the regional hospital in Korhogo, northern Côte d’Ivoire. In 2005 she had difficulties in childbirth; the infant was stillborn and Silué was left with an internal tear that let urine flow uncontrollably from her vagina.

“This condition causes enormous shame and embarrassment. People would see my clothes wet from urine and they would mock me.

“Mentally I was deeply affected. Whenever I was around people, I was constantly thinking that they were noticing the bad smell. I was dramatically limited in my activities.

“I used to sell things in the market. One day another vendor told people about my condition. She told people I kept my soiled tissues near my merchandise, but this was not the case at all. I was always meticulous about disposing of them. After that no one would buy from me so I had to abandon that work.

“I was imprisoned by this illness that I was sure could never be cured.

“I have seen a lot of women chased away by their husbands because of fistulas.

“A friend had heard on the radio that the hospital was providing free operations for this condition. At first I did not believe it; I thought perhaps only women who had influential friends or relatives could come and receive such treatment for free. But eventually I came.

“The doctors told me it was a condition called fistulas. All I knew was that I had abnormal holes in me and this made my urine flow constantly.

“Since the operation, it is as if I am just now joining society. My mother says ever since I had the operation, I am never at home. Now I can go out and engage with people and seek a job.

“I visit the women in the hospital who are awaiting operations for fistulas. They are nervous about the operation but they are encouraged when they see me. They hug me.

“I have to thank the doctors and all those who made this operation possible. It is an amazing thing to be delivered from this illness.”

np/pt source.www.irinnews.org

Photo: Sumaira Jajja/IRIN

Malnutrition – combined with diarrhoea, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) – is the biggest cause of child mortality in Tharparkar District

MITHI,  – Malnutrition – combined with diarrhoea, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) – is the biggest cause of child mortality in Tharparkar District in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province. Infant and child mortality (children under 12 months and 5 years respectively) is much worse here than the national average, according to local officials.

In the district capital, Mithi, infant mortality is 123 per 1,000 live births and the child mortality rate is 140 per 1,000, according to official records at the Civil Hospital in Mithi quoted by Jawahar Lal, the chief resident medical officer.

The figures compare unfavourably with Pakistan’s overall infant mortality rate of 75 per 1,000 live births. Each year 396,000 infants die, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a US-based body.

“Diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections and TB are the biggest threats to children in this region. Malnutrition due to poverty is a big contributing factor as the children here have little immunity,” Lal said.

The average daily income of most patients at Mithi’s state-run hospital was less than Rs150 (US$1.86) and there was little awareness about how to protect oneself from such illnesses, he said, adding: “The use of dried dung and wood, used for cooking… releases toxins and gases which damage the lungs and health… They have low immunity because of their poor diet… It’s all about immunity. The stronger it is, the better their chances of survival.”

Mohan Lal Khatri, a local paediatrician, said: “We have had cases here of one-year-old children weighing 5kg… Twenty percent of children at the hospital have pneumonia. Fifty percent have diarrhoea and TB while the rest have other malnutrition-related ailments.”

TB and DOTS

Explaining the rise of TB in children, he said: “There is a DOTS [Directly Observed Therapy, Short-course] programme by the government and many NGOs, but people do not tend to follow the whole course. So if one parent is infected, or anyone in the family is, it’s there, and this laid-back approach runs throughout the family, making treatment harder.”

Ismat (not her real name), a nurse at Mithi hospital, said high population growth aggravated the problem. “Pakistan’s total fertility rate is 4.1 live births per woman, but… the number of children each woman has is way higher. Seven kids are very common but this number does not include those that die during the first year or at birth,” she said.

Often basic medicines are unaffordable, she said: “A sachet of oral replacement supplement can be a financial burden. If a man earns Rs 100 [$1.25], how do we convince him to buy multivitamins, iron supplements and consume a healthy diet?”

According to the UN Human Development Report 2007/2008, 32.6 percent of Pakistan’s population live below the national poverty line.

sj/at/cb source.www.irinnews.org

Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN

Video footage of the flogging of a young girl by Taliban extremists in Swat Valley has sent shockwaves across Pakistan

PESHAWAR,  – Video footage of the flogging of a 17-year-old girl by bearded Taliban extremists in volatile Swat Valley, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), has sent shockwaves across Pakistan and highlighted the issue of violence against women.

Like millions of others, Uzma Khan (not her real name), 16, watched the public flogging of the girl in the village of Kala Killay in Swat’s Kabal Tehsil area, and wept. “The screams of that poor girl were just unbearable. She was treated like an animal. Now I want to leave Swat for ever,” Uzma told IRIN on the phone.

The case of the teenager, identified as Chand Bibi, hit the headlines after private TV channels repeatedly played a low quality video of her being held down in a blue `burqa’ and flogged in a street by the Pakistani Taliban.

Protests have been held in all major cities; the president and prime minister have demanded an inquiry.

The story being circulated in the media is that the girl had been spotted with a man unrelated to her. The local Taliban ordered that both Chand Bibi and Adalat Khan, with whom she was spotted, be flogged 30 times for “immoral” behaviour.

“The media is not telling the whole story. The girl alone is being shown. The man with her was also suitably punished,” Muslim Khan, spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in Swat, told IRIN, adding that the video footage was nine months old and shot during the government’s military operation against militants in Swat.

“Warning”

“This is not just about flogging. It is a warning of what could be in store for all of us,” prominent human rights activist Asma Jahangir told the media in the eastern city of Lahore where she participated – along with hundreds of others – in a protest rally against what happened. “Taliban have to be resisted,” she said.

Ali Dayan Hassan, senior South Asia researcher for the US-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch, said: “This is just one incidence of the wider violence against women in the country. Particularly under the Taliban, women have faced brutality.”

“This kind of incident should simply not take place under a democratic government,” Sherry Rehman, a former federal minister and member of parliament, said.

Various Taliban atrocities in Swat have surfaced from time to time, and media reports say at least 25 men and two women apart from Chand Bibi have been flogged in public over the past few months, but violence against women is commonplace.

Quoting the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Amnesty International said in a 2002 report that “over 90 percent of married women report being kicked, slapped, beaten or sexually abused when husbands were dissatisfied by their cooking or cleaning, or when the women had ‘failed’ to bear a child or had given birth to a girl instead of a boy.”

Meanwhile, the sense of fear is growing. Sumaira Ijaz (not her real name) told IRIN in Peshawar: “We are all afraid this incident could give ideas to extremists in other places… We are already far too afraid to even talk to a male cousin in public because of what could happen. Now perhaps we won’t even chat on email or messaging services because of what the consequences could be.”

Female NGO workers killed

On 6 April three female NGO workers and their driver were shot dead near Mansehra, in a part of the NWFP where Islamists have attacked aid groups, Reuters reported.

They all worked for Rise International, an NGO which works in the education sector in collaboration with the government and with the support of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The NGO workers had been meeting parents to persuade them to enrol their children, especially daughters, in schools.

“Everyone is just shocked,” Shezad Ahmed, project coordinator of Rise International, told IRIN, adding that Rise had not received “any kind of threat”.

Since the October 2005 earthquake which killed at least 72,000 in the NWFP and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Mansehra has served as a hub for NGOs with many setting up offices there as the town offers easy access to many northern areas.

kh/at/cb source.www.irinnews.org

Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN

One of the women who has received treatment for obstetric fistula in Korhogo, northern Côte d’Ivoire

KORHOGO, – Women ages 17 to 70 sit on vinyl mattresses, drainage bags on the floor next to their hospital beds, catheter tubes stretching from under colourful skirts. Each one has a serene, triumphant look.

The women are recovering from an operation that lasted some two hours and repaired tissue damage that made their urine flow uncontrollably “ in one case for 50 years.

“I am beside myself with joy”, one woman told IRIN, talking through an incessant smile. She told IRIN she had lived with the condition for 20 years.

Through a programme run by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) specialists are training local surgeons and gynaecologists in Korhogo, northern Còte d’Ivoire, in repairing vesico-vaginal fistula “ a hole in the birth canal caused by complicated labour and a lack of medical intervention, which leaves a woman leaking urine.

When the soft tissues of the pelvis are compressed between the baby’s head and the mother’s pelvic bone, the lack of blood flow causes tissue to die, creating a hole between the vagina and bladder or between the vagina and rectum.

Cases of recto-vaginal fistula are currently referred to other hospitals in the country where UNFPA also works with local doctors.

Obstetric fistula is preventable, yet some two million women around the world live with the condition, according to UNFPA. “The persistence of fistula is a signal that health systems are failing to meet the needs of women, UNFPA says.

For now 16 beds are available for fistula patients at the Korhogo hospital, according to M. Ladji, surgeon, gynaecologist and one of the physicians being trained to perform fistula operations. There is a waiting list, he said.

The demand in Korhogo “ 630km north of the commercial capital Abidjan “ exploded when partner NGOs in surrounding areas began informing communities of the free treatment, Mansar said. Women are coming from everywhere.

Since launching the project in February doctors in Korhogo have performed 25 operations to date.

We are giving these women a new life, Mansarè told IRIN, recalling how some women danced as they left the hospital. It cannot be described, it must be experienced.

This operation changed everything, said Siluè© Korotoum, a 34-year-old woman who received the treatment. “I can thrive now. I can go where I wish and do as I wish.

As part of the programme women are to receive assistance reintegrating into society and finding work.

Mansarè said one of the most important goals is long-term training for local health workers to treat obstetric fistula. We must set up something that will continue after [trainers] are gone.

In many cases women are not aware a remedy exists, or if they are, cannot afford it, according to UNFPA. Without subsidies the operation cost about US$300, about 10 times what most people in the region earn in a month, residents said.

In the UNFPA centres “ in the cities of Korhogo, Man and most recently Bouakè“ services are free; the programme will continue as long as funding is available through the agency’s Thematic Fund for Maternal Health, UNFPA gynaecologist Abou Pauline told IRIN. UNFPA is urging the Ministry of Health to maintain free care for women with fistulas.

Simeon N’da, Health Ministry spokesperson, told IRIN the ministry will study whether obstetric fistula is a condition for which the government will ensure free treatment, as it does for some other illnesses such as Buruli ulcer.

Preventable 

 

Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN

Some of the patients suffering obstetric fistulas after complicated childbirth are in their teens

In the Korhogo recovery room were three young women ages 17 to 18, whose fistulas were caused by difficult deliveries.

Doctors told IRIN even more important than providing treatment is eliminating the causes of fistula including poor general health, lack of maternal health care and practices such as early marriage and childbirth, lack of spacing between births and women’s lack of power to make their own health care decisions.

Obstetric fistula is a condition resulting from complicated childbirth, gynaecologist Abou told IRIN. If we reduced complications in childbirth we would reduce fistulas.

It is essential that people have access to properly equipped medical facilities and qualified medical personnel, she said.

But even when facilities are available, cultural practices weigh on women’s health, medical workers told IRIN.

At the Korhogo hospital a health worker recounted a case in which a woman urgently needed a caesarean section but family members would not consent without the approval of her husband. He was traveling and out of reach.

np/pt source.www.irinnews.org