Why is the US President Obama allowing his diplomat to continue urinating on the Kenyans? Why is he not recalling him or does he like to see his fatherland destabilised by his envoy to Kenya?

Is Obama angry at his fatherland because his father abandoned him when he was a little boy? He knows the damage ambassador Ranneberger is doing to Kenya and yet he lets him continue his crusade.

Imagine if the Kenyan ambassador to Washington came up with a cooked dossier touching on some US ministers just like Ranneberger has done in Kenya. He would be sent to Kenya immediately. But Kenya is not acting on the US ambassador who has damaged many political careers by naming some Kenyan leaders as drug traffickers without providing concrete evidence.

How long will the Kenyan leadership entertain nonsensical diplomacy practised by diplomats whose intent is to damage the country using money to destabilise the government? Is it not time they are told to either follow the rules of diplomacy and respect the host country or leave?

The US Ambassador messed up Kenya by distributing money to the youth in an effort to destabilise President Kibaki’s government. The move angered Kibaki who during the Independence celebrations on the 12th december told off the envoy.

Now that the Kenyan Parliamentarians have passed a resolution that will enable Kenya to cut ties with the ICC, a group of envoys are staring to pork their noses into the country’s internal affairs as if the leaders are not able to lead the country.

It is reported by Daily Nation Kenya that the envoys in question have urged the government to allow ICC’ prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to go on to prosecute the six people that he believes bear the responsibility for the post-election violence. It is also reported that they are calling for reforms in the Kenya Judiciary to try other suspects in connection with the same violence.

In a statement seen to be interfering with the running of the country’s internal affairs, the envoys say, “Kenya has been rebuilding its international image since the post-election violence. Withdrawal from the ICC process potentially risks all this,” the envoys from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.”

What are they fearing if Kenya cuts ties with the ICC and remain like the United States of America who has opted not be ICC member.

Remaining in the ICC undermines the sovereignty of Kenya and gives way to the Western envoys to continue fooling Kenyan leaders pretending to like them while at night they send bad information to their bosses calling Kenyan leaders all sorts of bad names as has been revealed by the WikiLeaks.

Envoys in Kenya are opening their mouths all the time. They should be told to use their mouths right and shut up, leaving the country’s affairs to the people it belongs to. Kenyans are not a primitive people wanting advise from envoys on every issue.

By Chief editor Korir, African Press International.

If this is true, then Kenya is on the wrong track!

President Kibaki, please act now and continue to lead Kenya into prosperity in the new year. Having persons named in connection with dirty deals serving in government will taint your legacy. Even if some of them are your friends, you must let them carry their own cross if found to have really been involved in deals that no longer enables them to go around in the country with honourable titles that you gave them by appointing them to serve in your administration era, no matter the capacity they are serving in at the moment..

The Kenya government has named some of its own leaders including members of parliament as people involved in drugs trafficking in the country.

The International Minister Professor George Saitoti while addressing Parliament this week named Harun Mwau who is Trade Assistant Minister. Also named are MPs Sonko Mbuvi, Kabogo and Hassan Joho. A businessman in Mombasa was also not spared.

Now that Harun Mwau has chosen to step aside and allow investigations against himself to go continue while out of government, others with ministerial positions named as suspects in connection with corruption in their ministries should see sense and resign.

William Ruto was suspended as the Minister for Higher Education because he has a pending court case. He did not resign or step aside as Mwau did. Others who are struggling to hang onto their ministerial positions are Charity Ngilu who is minister for water development. She has corruption allegations against her because she gave tenders to her relatives. This is misuse of office. The other minister Henry Kosgey is also hanging on. He has been accused of being of being involved with corruption in his ministry through importation of old cars. He is also accused of giving a job to his tribesman, by-passing more experienced applicants.

These people should step aside like mr Mwau. It is known that most ministers can even kill those who criticise them because of the love they have in flying the ministerial flag.

It is surprising that when William Ruto and the Kuria member of parliament who was assistant minister was mentioned in cases affecting them, they were both suspended.

Now the president should do the same with those who are still hanging onto the flag!

Another pressing issue is that of the ICC. If the President believes the ICC did the right thing in naming the six Kenyans then he should also ask them to step down. Those on the ICC list are William Ruto – Suspended Higher Education Minister, Henry Kosgey – The minister hanging onto his industrialization minister position, Uhuru Kenyatta – Deputy Prime minister and Finance Minister, Mr Muthaura – The Secretary to the Presidency and Head of the Civil Service, Ali – the former Police Commissioner who is now the country’s Postmaster General and Mr Sang a Radio Broadcaster.

The Kenyan people are now waiting to see leadership in action. Of course they know that the named suspects whether as drug traffickers or in connection with corrupt activities are innocent until proven guilty. However, is important and honourable that those named step aside or resign completely and wait for investigation to be completed and either they are cleared or they are taken to court to face the law.

By Chief Editor Korir, African Press International.

HIV/AIDS: Disability, HIV find common ground

Photo: Sven Torfinn/IRIN

NEW YORK, 21 December 2010 (PlusNews) – People living with disabilities are known to be just as, if not more, at risk of contracting HIV as non-disabled people, but there is little specific data or programming that reflects this reality on a global scale.

That is slowly starting to change, say HIV/AIDS and disability civil society leaders, as well as UN agency health officials, as connections between the divergent groups are growing stronger and the urgent need to address this gap is being made increasingly clear after years of internal stalled progress.

“There’s just a real dearth of data,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS Free World, an international HIV/AIDS advocacy organization based in New York. “If a country said, ‘We don’t have data on disability and HIV/AIDS’, then that in itself is data, but we don’t see that, even. The actual activity, the expression of will, is sporadic.”

More than 600 million people – 10 percent of the global population – live with disabilities, and 80 percent of them live in developing countries. This population often struggles to gain access to sex education and health services, including HIV prevention and education materials.

Yet people with disabilities engage in the same sexual behaviours that the general population does, according to a landmark 2004 Yale University/World Bank report entitled HIV/AIDS and Individuals with Disability. Additionally, women with disabilities are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and rape than non-disabled women.

Eighty-seven percent of disability advocates, programmes and institutions from 57 countries consider HIV/AIDS “of immediate concern” to the disabled populations they serve, the report showed.

But indications that speak to the impact HIV/AIDS has on the disabled community on a global scale largely stop there.

Initiatives

UNAIDS is now picking up the pieces, nearly seven years later, and is planning to investigate ongoing initiatives that link AIDS and disability, and what kind of engagement there has been with persons living with disabilities.

It is a start that will eventually lead to in-depth analysis of these connections, said Emilio Timpo, senior adviser to UNAIDS, and on programming specific to disabled persons.

Other UN agencies, like UNICEF, have also begun to focus more on the connections between HIV/AIDS and disability at the country level, said Ken Legins, HIV/AIDS chief at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF’s Burkina Faso office recently conducted a study on HIV among people with disabilities aged 15-64, which revealed they were much more likely to be illiterate and out of school, and with limited access to information about HIV. They tended to have low incomes and their subjection to sexual abuse made them more likely to be forced into risky sex behaviours.

When discussing HIV, disability gets left out because the group of people who work on these issues are often not a part of the discussion and we need to make sure that they are

“The challenge is that the HIV community itself is not well connected with people who are advocates for disability at the country level,” Legins told IRIN/PlusNews. “When discussing HIV, disability gets left out because the group of people who work on these issues are often not a part of the discussion and we need to make sure that they are.”

Disability and HIV/AIDS were prominently featured in the main programme for the first time in an International AIDS Conference this past July, in Vienna, marking a sharp turn from the previous conference in Mexico City in 2008, said Donovan of AIDS Free World. The conference venue was not accommodating to disabled people and disability was sidelined to a satellite event, she said.

Communications gaps

UNAIDS recently co-sponsored a panel discussion on HIV/AIDS and disability in New York, sandwiched between World AIDS Day and the International Day of Persons with Disabilities – commemorative events that are usually kept separate, UNAIDS’s Timpo said.

Disability will receive an even higher profile at the International AIDS Society conference in Washington D.C. in 2012, predicted Steve Estey, chair of the International Committee of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.

The acceleration of inclusion has been “quite astonishing” since 2006, noted Estey, when “we were nowhere”.

At the panel discussion in New York, though, questions circled around the communication gaps that have existed between the two communities for years, and why it has taken UN agencies so long to take action.

Eric Sawyer, civil society adviser to UNAIDS, said it was partly a function of working to scale-up basic services first.

“The UN system has been struggling just to get prevention messaging and treatment access available and accessible around the world,” Sawyer said. “Once you are able to ensure people have that access, then you are able to increase the level of services. But of course we are working to ensure that the disabled have equal access and that is increasingly finding a place in people’s consciousness.”

al/kn/cb

source http://www.irinnews.org

UGANDA: Strong turnout as male circumcision kicks off in the north

Photo: Charles Akena/IRIN

A surgeon prepares for male circumcision in Gulu

GULU, 22 December 2010 (PlusNews) – After years of hearing about the protective effects of medical male circumcision against HIV, many men in northern Uganda are taking advantage of a government move to provide the procedure free of charge.

Uganda launched its national male circumcision policy in September 2010; in 2006 a large study in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda found that the procedure can reduce a man’s risk of contracting HIV through vaginal intercourse by as much as 60 percent.

Nationally, about 25 percent of Ugandan men are circumcised, but in the north, that figure drops to as low as 2.4 percent in the north-central Acholi and Lango sub-regions.

So far, men in the north are turning up for the procedure in large numbers – in Apac District, Lango sub-region, where the programme began in September, more than 1,300 men have already been circumcised. In the Acholi sub-region town of Gulu, more than 100 men registered for the procedure in the first week, while Lira, also in the Lango sub-region, saw more than 250 men circumcised in the first week.

Enthusiastic response

“I learnt of the circumcision from my wife who heard it over a radio announcement; she advised me to get circumcised as a precautionary measure,” Richard Odong said at a hospital in the northern town of Gulu.

The service has been available in major hospitals, but has been too expensive for men in the region; the availability of the service for free has encouraged many more men to undergo circumcision.

“The cost of circumcision is quite expensive, unaffordable for the rural communities,” said Paul Sserubiri of the Catholic Medical Mission Board, an NGO involved in the male circumcision programme in the north. “In Gulu it costs 30,000 shillings [about US$14] – with the high level of poverty here they can’t afford it.”

Health officials in the north say the introduction of free male circumcision is a much-needed addition to the region’s HIV prevention tools. “The trend of HIV infection in northern Uganda with a higher prevalence rate than the entire country is worrying; t he number of people getting infected with HIV/AIDS is going up,” said Andrew Ocero, director of clinical services for the Northern Uganda AIDS Malaria Tuberculosis Control Programme.

“It [male circumcision] will complement other existing strategies like ABC [abstinence, be faithful and condom use] and PMTCT [prevention of mother-to-child transmission].”

According to the 2005 Demographic Health Survey, HIV prevalence in northern Uganda is 8.2 percent, higher than the national figure of 6.2 percent; urban areas in the north have even higher levels of HIV – Gulu’s prevalence, for example, is 11.9 percent.

The male circumcision programme is limited to five main hospitals in the districts of Apac, Gulu and Lira, but the government intends to roll it out to smaller health facilities around the region.

Challenges

However, local health officials say the region’s health centres will need to be significantly improved to successfully expand the service. HIV programmes in northern Uganda have been beset by problems, including shortages of life-prolonging antiretrovirals, poor tuberculosis management and patients abandoning their ARVs due to insufficient food.

How do you expect that they [health workers] will be there to circumcise the villagers if they have failed to avail the condoms for distribution?

A chemist in Anaka, Nwoya District, who preferred anonymity, told IRIN/PlusNews he doubted the ability of male circumcision programmes to function properly under current levels of health service provision.

“Absenteeism from duty is common in the health centres, patients go and wait for the health staff who do not turn up, condoms and ARVs are expiring in the drug store here in Anaka,” he said. “How do you expect that they will be there to circumcise villagers if they have failed to avail the condoms for distribution?”

Charles Luwas, Gulu district HIV focal person, noted that health centres in the region faced challenges of lack of equipment and staff. Health workers have urged the government to invest in the region’s health facilities to ensure the expansion of male circumcision and other HIV services to the more remote areas of the north.

ca/kr/mw

source http://www.irinnews.org

ETHIOPIA: Five-year plan to halve new HIV infections

Photo: WD/IRIN

ADDIS ABABA, 23 December 2010 (PlusNews) – Ethiopia’s government has come up with an ambitious plan to halve new HIV infections, quadruple its annual condom distribution and put 85 percent of people who need life-prolonging HIV medication on treatment within five years.

An estimated 1.2 million Ethiopians are HIV-positive. According to the government, the country’s national prevalence is 2.4 percent, with stark differences between urban HIV prevalence, which stands at about 7.7 percent and rural levels of under 1 percent.

According to UNAIDS, Ethiopia has already managed to bring down new HIV infections by over 25 percent since 2001. The country’s HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO) says prevalence among young people is dropping.

“Data obtained from studies since 2007/08 and a draft national survey show that there are fewer and fewer young ones entering puberty being infected with the virus both in urban and rural areas,” said Yibeltal Assefa, director of planning, monitoring and evaluation at HAPCO.

“When you see the capital Addis Ababa for example, [the] prevalence rate among the young ones [aged 15-24] was above 12.1 percent in 2005… Two years later, in 2007, it went down to 6.2 percent, exhibiting [an] almost 50 percent decline.”

In its latest global report on the epidemic, UNAIDS reported decreases in prevalence among antenatal care attendees in both rural and urban areas of Ethiopia, and improved behavioural indicators such as fewer people who have had sex by the age of 15 and fewer people reporting sex with more than one partner in the past year.

According to the five-year plan, presented to parliament by HAPCO on 16 December, the government also plans to increase the coverage of antiretroviral therapy from 60 to 85 percent. Close to 400,000 Ethiopians require treatment for HIV.

Ethiopia is in the process of expanding the number of health centres to over 3,000 to reach its treatment targets. The plan also aims to increase national condom distribution from 97 to 400 million annually.

Ignorance still a challenge

While the country’s progress is impressive, analysts say there is still much to be done. A recently released survey by research group Population Council and the UN Population Fund, UNFPA, found that stigma and ignorance were still common among young people.

“A considerable percentage of young people had never heard of condoms or had no exposure to them,” the study found. “One third of young people [aged 12-24] felt that moral people do not use condoms; 48 percent of young people felt that condoms should not be used within marriage; and roughly half felt that condoms are used by promiscuous people.”

The authors recommended increased attention to marital transmission of HIV/AIDS and use of condoms within marriage.

Including MSM in the HIV agenda

A considerable percentage of young people had never heard of condoms or had no exposure to them… roughly half felt that condoms are used by promiscuous people

The country’s HIV plan aims to be comprehensive, but glaringly absent from its HIV strategies is any programming specifically for men who have sex with men (MSM), who generally fall into “most at-risk” populations.

According to Israel Tadesse, a lawyer at Addis Ababa city municipality, Ethiopia’s criminal code imposes prison terms of 3-12 months on people found having sex with members of the same sex. Fear of legal repercussions is often a hindrance for gay people seeking HIV prevention and treatment services.

“There is anecdotal belief that the number of MSM is increasing but we don’t have any credible or official study or data,” HAPCO’s Yibeltal said. “Ethiopia is no island to the global state of things so I am sure in the near future it will be a threat. Therefore, necessary intervention should be implemented but the problem so far is a hidden agenda.”

kt/kr/cb

source. http://www.irinnews.org