Grete Waitz,  former marathon runner died today Tuesday 19. april 2011 due to cancer:

She was born on the 1st of October 1953 in Oslo, Norway.

Her achievements as a marathon runner:

Olympic games she won silver in 1984, World games she won Gold in 1983

She also won New York Marathon 9 times (1978-80, 1982-86, 1988), London marathon 2 times in (1983, 1986), and Stockholm maraton in 1988.

May God keep her soul in peace. API sends condolences to her family.

By Korir, Chief editor.

MYANMAR: Drug production on the rise

Photo: Steve Sandford/IRIN

A police lab technician in Bangkok examines a shipment of siezed yaba

CHIANG RAI, 11 April 2011 (IRIN) – The young man sits on the railing of the long tail boat, explaining how he smuggles amphetamines into Thailand from Myanmar.

“When I transport ‘Ya Ba’ [crazy drug], I come down this way,” says the ex-Wa army soldier, pointing across the River Kok on the Thai-Myanmar border, as the wooden vessel glides by a Thai checkpoint on the shoreline.

A sprawling border region, largely controlled by ethnic armies within Myanmar and corruption within the Thai security forces, has aided a thriving narcotics trade along the 1,800km border.

In 2009, seizures of pills in Myanmar and the countries immediately bordering Shan State tripled from the previous year, a trend that has continued in 2010, a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states.

Between January and September 2010, more than 44 million pills were seized in Thailand alone, while over 22 million pills were confiscated in Lao PDR, it added.

Most amphetamines are produced in small, mobile labs near Myanmar’s borders with China and Thailand, primarily in territories controlled by active or former ethnic insurgent groups, many of which now operate as criminal syndicates rather than politically motivated insurgents, according to the 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy (INCS) report released in March.

“Burma’s drug enforcement authorities have not suppressed drug production and trafficking from the ceasefire enclaves of certain ethnic minorities, primarily the region controlled by the United Wa State Army [UWSA],” it stated.

But while the UWSA is considered a prime player in the drug trade, there is also a surge in production – of both amphetamine tablets and heroin – by militia groups aligned with Myanmar’s military-led government.

This is attributed to the army’s reliance on taxation of opium, and its policy to allow proxy militia groups to deal in drugs in exchange for policing resistance activity, maintains Shan expert Kuen Sai.

Despite promises by the UWSA to eradicate poppy fields in its Northern Myanmar region, the policy has led to a rise in opium production in other areas of the country, he said.

“As the drug trade goes, it has a balloon effect. When it was suppressed in the Wa area it went to other areas. The production began to build up in other areas of Shan state,” explains Kuen Sai.

“But not all of the drugs are produced by the Wa,” he adds. “Along the Thai-Burma border there are many areas not under control of the Wa. They are mostly under the control of the Burma army and militia groups. These militia groups are the main competitors for the Wa right now.”

Thai challenge

Drug eradication has been a constant challenge for Region 4 Special Forces Colonel Peeranate Ketthem, who overseas the northern borders of Thailand.

“The drug organizations have set up the factories in the ethnic groups’ community, where they can control production.

“For example, in northern Shan state they’ve built up factories in four or five places and also built a factory in the area between Ko Kang ethnic group and Wa state.”

The colonel estimates that less than 30 percent of the total amount of drugs being smuggled in is actually intercepted by Thai forces.

Indeed, the vast stretches of land between the two borders provide ample room for crossing undetected.

Smuggling experience

On the Kok River, the former Wa soldier tells of the smuggling he once undertook just to survive.

Often going without proper food and supplies, the former soldier would get just over US$300 for each delivery down the river. The parcels, containing 10,000-20,000 tablets, were usually wrapped in watertight packets.

“The people who would order me to do the deliveries were usually army commanders. We couldn’t really refuse.”

And with no signs of the conflict easing up, most observers expect the drug problem to continue.

According to the INCS report, in 2010, Myanmar was categorized by US President Barack Obama as one of three countries to have “failed demonstrably” to meet its international counter-narcotics obligations and all indications suggest the country’s production of amphetamine type stimulants continued to rise.

Myanmar, Venezuela and Bolivia are among 20 countries – including Afghanistan, Colombia and Mexico – that have been identified as “major illicit drug producing and/or drug transit countries”, according to the report sent to the US Congress.

ss/ds/mw

source irinnews

UGANDA: Educator, counsellor, nurse – the many roles of a teacher

Photo: Charles Akena/IRIN

HIV education is an important part of schools’ activities

GULU, 15 April 2011 (PlusNews) – Every school morning, Geoffrey Ocira stops his lessons for half an hour, rushing to his office to give his HIV-positive students their antiretroviral (ARV) medication.

“The pupils ask me to keep their ARV drugs while in school so that they don’t miss their day’s treatment,” Ocira, a head teacher at a primary school in Layibi, in northern Uganda’s Gulu District, told IRIN/PlusNews.

“I tell them to follow their treatment, eat a balanced diet, never engage in too much physical work and avoid thinking too much because they should feel happy that people are there to help them,” he said.

In much of northern Uganda, HIV-related stigma is still a big issue in schools and few parents are brave enough to disclose their children’s HIV status to their teachers.

“Most times we learn that a child is HIV-positive when they are falling sick continuously, so we press their parents to tell us the child’s health status,” said Andrew Otim, a teacher at Laliya Primary School in Gulu.

As trust develops between the teachers and their students, more HIV-positive students and their parents are opening up to teachers about their children’s special circumstances.

“My mother advised me not to fear my teacher because he will help me keep my medicine for the morning dose so that I don’t miss it,” said Sunday*, a pupil at Ocira’s school. “I keep some of my ARV drugs in school and the others at home; the teacher keeps my medication for the morning and my mother keeps the night medication.”

According to Sunday’s mother, it was a relief to have the additional support in caring for her child.

Today, six pupils at the school have disclosed their status to Ocira, but many more remain too afraid of being stigmatized.

HIV education

According to Samuel Ogonono, a centre coordinating tutor for primary schools in Gulu, all primary schools are required to implement the Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy Communication to Youth to provide accurate information on HIV as well as to eliminate stigma and discrimination among school children, their families and communities.

Most times we learn that a child is HIV-positive when they are falling sick continuously, so we press their parents to tell us the child’s health status

“We are seeing children that are very much aware of HIV and their behaviours are changing but teachers need to work harder on that,” he said.

Betty Akongo is one of the teachers in charge of the communication programme at a local primary school. “We have class talks about HIV, focus group discussions, music, dance and drama, essays and poems, inter-school HIV club meetings, children’s radio-talk shows, testimonies from HIV-positive children, home visits and counselling for families affected by HIV,” she said.

She noted that the programme was particularly important for teenagers. “You know children of adolescent age… are easily excited so that requires consistent and extra care.”

But Ben Okwamoi, district education officer in Amuru District, said the programme had suffered from a lack of attention by some teachers.

“They do not engage children adequately on providing them with the required information; that is why you see other school children stigmatize fellow pupils,” he said.

ca/kr/mw

source irinnews

SWAZILAND: NGOs accused of being with ‘the enemy’

Photo: IRIN

King Mswati III

MBABANE, 15 April 2011 (IRIN) – The government of King Mswati III of Swaziland is accusing NGOs and foreign diplomats of consorting with “the enemy”.

A new round of protests against sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch began on 12 April – the 38th anniversary of a decree issued by Mswati’s predecessor, King Sobhuza II, which imposed a state of emergency and banned political parties. Witnesses said heavy-handed police detained pro-democracy activists and media representatives.

“We say people should disassociate themselves from the banned political parties – or whatever you call them – then we find some of you, Your Excellencies, sitting and having diner with these people,” public works minister Nthutuko Dlamini told about 30 foreign envoys at a meeting called by foreign minister Lutfo Dlamini in the capital, Mbabane, on the eve of the protest. “You cannot be seen to be with my enemy. It is naturally wrong.”

The primarily urban-based pro-democracy movement includes trade unions, banned political parties like the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), and the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO), all termed as “terrorist organizations” under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

The non-partisan value systems of NGOs do not prevent them being drawn into the political fray, Dimpho Motsamai a researcher in the Africa Conflict Prevention Program at the Pretoria-based think tank, the Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN.

NGOs have to engage with the state around issues of policy, delivery or simply by asking of government “where did the money go?”. Once NGOs “cross the line” and become defined as a political entity, they become exposed to Swaziland’s security legislation that could lead to their banning, she said.

Nthutuko Dlamini told the diplomats according to local reports that countries should not provide financial assistance to “[non-governmental] organizations that have anti-government agendas”, but should instead make those donations directly to the government.

No foreign country with a diplomatic mission in Swaziland is known to contribute financially to any political party or entity. However, foreign governments provide assistance to local NGOs working in the social, health and humanitarian sectors. NGO activities have not been disrupted by the pro-democracy protests so far.

“Government has always had a rather jaundiced view of NGOs, because they feel they have no control over us,” a programme director at an HIV/AIDS NGO, who declined to be identified, told IRIN:

Government has always had a rather jaundiced view of NGOs, because they feel they have no control over us

“They are concerned about ‘outside influences’, and many NGOs have international ties and depend on the international community for financing. One of the themes we heard this week from government is that pro-democracy protests are due to foreign influences and outsiders with agendas,” the director said.

A Swaziland-based sociologist, who declined to be named, told IRIN: “No Swaziland-based NGO has a political mission. But in Swaziland ‘culture’ has been politicized, so when some NGOs raise issues that are foreign to traditional Swazi viewpoints this is seen as the imposition of a foreign ideology on the Swazi way of life.”

The sociologist cited as an example the experiences of NGOs such as Women in Law in Southern Africa and the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse that have drawn fire for promoting gender equality and the protection of women in a society where women were considered as minors under traditional law.

Donor dependent country

The landlocked donor-dependent country, sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique, has the world’s highest HIV/AIDS prevalence – an estimated 26 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 are infected – and at least two-thirds of the roughly one million Swazis live in chronic poverty.

Income from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has provided around 75 percent of government revenues according to some estimates, but this has declined in recent years, exerting acute financial pressure on the public purse.

SACU, comprising Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, is the world oldest customs union. It applies a common set of tariffs and disproportionately distributes the revenue to member states, providing a lifeline that ensures the economic survival of Swaziland and Lesotho.

In 2011 the government suspended the first quarterly pension pay-out of US$21 per eligible individual. A reduction of about 7,000 public service jobs was also expected this year, although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended the workforce be cut by a third, or 10,000 employees, because the number of workers on the payroll was disproportionate to the country’s size.

NGOs provide an array of services, from support for people living with HIV/AIDS to assistance for abused women and children. About 100,000 Swazis currently receive food assistance from foreign donors, but in the past few years this number has sometimes surpassed a quarter of the population.

“Aside from the matter that government is not accountable for the money it receives – which is a key issue with the protestors – the truth is that NGOs provide many services that government does not,” a spokesman for an Mbabane-based NGO, who declined to be identified, told IRIN.

In the past, NGOs publicly expressing a negative view of the monarchy have been condemned in parliament for “engaging in politics” with the support of foreign funding.

In 2009, a support group for HIV-positive women, Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL), held a rally protesting the lavish lifestyles and shopping excursions to the Middle East and Europe by Mswati and his 13 wives while most of the people lived in poverty.

mz/go/he

source http://www.irinnews.org