Khalwale has a fight with Raila, the Prime Minister. Khalwale’s election to parliament was nullified last year forcing him to face opponents in a by-election. During that by-election, Raila and many other ODM party leaders went o Ikolomani constituency where they campaigned for Khalwale’s arch-rival. Khalwale won the by-election but has never forgiven Raila for having supported his rival.

The MP is now happy to see Raila in troubled waters. MP Bonny Khalwale says the ‘Kibaki Tosha’ declaration Raila made in 2002 was a betrayal to Ford People’s Simeon Nyachae. According to Khalwale, Raila has betrayed many leaders.

Khalwale has told the Kenya media that “Upon Jaramogi’s death in 1994, Raila attempted to wrestle the chairmanship of Ford Kenya from Kijana Wamalwa, who had stood by his father, “He abandoned Wamalwa after a bitter fight.”

Khalwale says that on losing the battle to Wamalwa, Raila then formed NDP, a party he used to enter into a working relationship with KANU, only to wreck Kanu from inside. He did so when he realised Moi wanted Uhuru Kenyatta for presidency in 2002 says Khalwale.”

Khalwale accuses Raila for using unorthodox means in 2007 to push out Kalonzo Musyoka, who was his main challenger as ODM-Kenya presidential flag-bearer. Khalwale says Raila’s informal leadership grouping with those leaders he took with him, the ODM ‘Pentagon’, is no more.

Khalwale says the onslaught facing Raila is good for him because he is only getting that which he also did to others.

Khalwale has told the Kenya media, “He is being paid in the same coin,” he says. “Raila only works for himself. It can’t be that he is more sinned against than sinning. He is very cunning and behaves like the proverbial hare.”

End

The Government decided today to cancel around NOK 20 million of Côte d’Ivoire’s debt to Norway.

Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim commented, “I am pleased that Côte d’Ivoire is now on the right track towards cancellation of all its debt following the crisis last year. The country faces major challenges in the wake of a long internal conflict.”

This debt cancellation is in line with an agreement reached in the Paris Club – an informal group of creditor countries – on 15 November last year, to cancel Côte d’Ivoire’s debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.
In keeping with the Norwegian debt plan, the debt will be cancelled without any funds being taken from the development assistance budget. In other words, the debt cancellation will not affect other development assistance to poor countries, but will be additional to this.

“A reduction in debt will make it easier for Côte d’Ivoire to improve its economy and rebuild the country after the conflict. I hope that Norway will be able to cancel the rest of the debt later this year,” said Mr Solheim.

Norway has cancelled a total of NOK 300 million of Côte d’Ivoire’s debt over the last 15 years. The remaining amount is around NOK 187 million. This may be cancelled later this year if the country meets the requirements for responsible economic governance set out under the HIPC initiative.
 end

source mfa.norway

ASIA: Isolation, poverty loom for an aging population

Photo: David Longstreath/IRIN

More of her in coming years

BANGKOK,  – With 60 percent of the world’s population, Asia has one of the largest concentrations globally of aging persons, creating a host of potential challenges, experts warn.

“Asian countries, besides Japan perhaps, need to plan now. These countries have grown older before they have grown rich,” said Somnath Chatterji with the World Health Organization (WHO) office in New Delhi.

One in four people in Asia will be 60 or older by the year 2050, rising from one in 10 in 2010, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Over 65 percent of Asia’s elderly population will be women.

“China and India clearly will be the countries with the largest population of older adults in absolute terms. However, China is aging more rapidly than India because of its one child policy,” Chatterji added.

The over-60 population will rise from 165 million to 439 million in China and from 93 million to 323 million in India from 2010 to 2050, according to government projections reported to the UN.

India’s overall population is expected to exceed China’s in the same period.

Philip Guest, the Bangkok-based assistant director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for South and Southeast Asia, told IRIN aging will “severely” affect developing countries throughout the region.

One of the sharpest increases in the region will be in Bangladesh, where the elderly will almost quadruple from 6.6 percent of the population in 2010 to 22.5 percent in 2050, according to UNFPA.

IRIN asked experts about the biggest challenges facing this population.

Income

In many developed countries pensions and social security schemes are tied to employment, which cannot be easily replicated in Asia where most people work in the informal sector.

“Informal sector means workers are not in the social security programme. Half of Thai people will not have income when they retire,” said Amornrat Apinunmahakul, an economics professor at Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration, a government-run graduate university.

He proposed a universal pension scheme, noting funding problems.

“Now the [Thai] government has a universal programme for the older population; they give 500 baht [US$16] per month. But the minimum wage in Thailand is 1,500-1,600 baht [$48-$52], so this is not enough.”

“The general feeling within the [South Asia] region is that such schemes are not affordable,” said Dave Mather, who heads the New Dehli-based South Asia centre of NGO HelpAge.

Health

Chronic illness has eclipsed communicable disease due to people living longer, wrote Sarah Harper, a professor at the UK-based Oxford Institute of Ageing, in a 2010 report on adapting health care for an ageing population.

“[Greater] life expectancy without the bonus of increased health may be increasing to such an extent that we are on the verge of an epidemic of frailty.”

Beyond physical frailty, the number of dementia patients in the Asia-Pacific region will rise from 14 million in 2005 to 24 million in 2020 and become as high as 65 million by 2050, estimated Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), an London-headquartered NGO.

Depression is also fairly common among older adults, said Chatterji with WHO.

Experts cite loneliness, disorientation, a sense of abandonment and lack of self-worth as causes of depression and poor mental health, as people become less active.

A key to ensuring the elderly receive the care they need is to ensure they have a solid support network – one that is slowly shrinking.
 
“Social isolation of this population – as the family size shrinks and migration [leading] to older adults living by themselves – will be a major concern,” predicted Chatterji.

ms/pt/cb source www.irinnews.org

SOMALIA: Galkayo IDPs suffer as aid agencies pull out

Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN

Living conditions for thousands of IDPs have deteriorated as more aid agencies withdraw

NAIROBI,  – More and more aid agencies are withdrawing from South Galkayo in central Somalia’s self-declared autonomous state of Galmudug, due to increased insecurity: Five months after a militia kidnapped two aid workers, living conditions for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) there have deteriorated, with food and shelter in short supply.

“I live in Buulo Kontrol Camp. In my camp alone, there are 1,084 families [around 6,500 people]. Many of the agencies that used to help us have left because they fear for their safety. We are short of almost everything – food, shelter and medical help,” Sayid Ali, a resident, told IRIN by telephone on 14 February.

There are 9,863 IDP families (59,178 people) in and around Galkayo in 21 IDP settlements, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

“We are extremely concerned about the decreasing humanitarian access in Galkayo, which for the past few years has been a relatively safe environment for humanitarian workers delivering aid to over 60,000 IDPs and many more vulnerable people in areas south of Galkayo,” said Kiki Gbeho, who heads the Somalia branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“We need all actors and Somali people to work together to enable aid workers to reach those in need, wherever they are,” she added.

The vast majority of the IDPs are from southern Somalia but the camps are also home to some drought displaced, according to Abdinasir Abdullahi Shuuke, who heads SOSDA, a local NGO working with the displaced.

“Since most of the aid agencies withdrew late last year, due to insecurity, the displaced have had very little help.”

Shuuke told IRIN that insecurity in South Galakyo was “a major problem for both IDPs and aid agencies. The aid workers cannot do their work if their lives are at risk and the IDPs are caught up in the middle.”

In October 2011 two aid workers from Danish Demining Group were kidnapped in South Galkayo, and on 21 January an US reporter was kidnapped there.

Little food

Sayid Ali, an IDP from southern Somalia, lives in the Buulo Kontrol camp, home to some 630 families (3,800 people). He said the security situation in the town was bad and adversely affecting their lives.

I have one malnourished boy and we all eat what he is given. I know it is wrong but what can I do.

“We used to get help from the agencies and supplement that with odd jobs in the town. But now the agencies are slowly disappearing and there is no work in the town because of the security situation.”

He said their biggest concern was dwindling food supplies and shelter material. “Everything here is in short supply but food and shelter are our biggest worry.”

Zahro Hassan, a mother of seven, who also cares for four orphaned children, said she struggles to get one meal a day for her family.

Hassan, a resident of Alanley camp, along with 950 other displaced families (5,700 people), said only residents deemed to be malnourished get food provided by a local NGO. “I have one malnourished boy and we all eat what he is given. I know it is wrong but what can I do.”

She said she used to get work in the town but can no longer find any.

A local journalist, who visited the camp recently, told IRIN that people in the camp and other camps in the area were desperate.

“The plastic sheeting they use to cover their huts is falling apart and many of the families I visited had very little or no food.”

“What agencies are here [South Galkayo] have problems moving around,” he said.

ah/cb
source www.irinnews.org

EGYPT: Where emergency crews need rescuing

Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN

Volunteers help aid responders save victims of recent clashes between policemen and demonstrators in Cairo

CAIRO,  – In Egypt’s political turmoil, one segment of society has been largely forgotten: the first aid responders who risk their lives to rescue victims of violence.

Ambulance drivers and paramedics say they do not have adequate protection, insurance or job security, despite facing increased risk and hostility in the year since a popular uprising toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“We have been more prone to violence and aggression after the revolution,” Ahmed Mohamed, a 34-year-old first aid responder who works with the Ministry of Health, told IRIN. “It is becoming common for us now to be attacked, injured or even killed.”

People like Mohamed have been at the centre of violent clashes over the last few months – between civilian and military policemen, and protesters demanding the vision of the revolution be upheld. They have braved gunfire, teargas, and birdshot pellets (which cause serious injury but do not kill) to reach victims and take them to hospital for treatment.

Hundreds went on strike late last month to demand medical, social and life insurance, and permanent positions. The strike lasted about two weeks before participants cut it short to respond to renewed clashes in Cairo on 4 February.

In the eye of the storm

When tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in January and February 2011 to demand a change of government, Mohamed was in the central protest area, Tahrir Square, like his colleagues in other cities like Suez and Alexandria, to offer help to victims. They saw people shot in the head; others in the eyes.

But they, too, came under repeated attack. Ambulance crews were attacked for money or equipment, and first aiders believe the culprits are former inmates who escaped during the revolution and are still at large. (The Ministry of Interior estimates them to be about 4,500).

Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN

Emergency workers hurried to the vicinity to the Interior Ministry in downtown Cairo early this month to offer help to victims of clashes between policemen and demonstrators

In an atmosphere of increased fear and suspicion in Egypt, first aiders have also been met by aggressive behaviour from the families of victims they treat, accused either of being part of the conflict or of not doing enough to save their loved ones.

When Mohamed and some of his colleagues rushed to Tahrir Square on 4 February to help a victim of clashes between protesters and policemen following fatal soccer riots in the Mediterranean city of Port Said, he was insulted by the relatives of the victims at a nearby hospital, who accused him of arriving too late.

“Emergency workers take no sides and people need to understand this,” said Mohamed Mohei, the Emergency Section coordinator at the Egyptian Red Crescent. “If an emergency worker is attacked or injured, he will not be able to offer help to anybody.”

Risks

Ahmed Mohamed is one of 7,000 emergency aid responders working for the Egyptian Health Ministry. None of them has insurance.

“This means that if I fall ill, I need to pay for my treatment,” said Alaa Aly, another first aider. “I have been doing this in fact since I started doing this job three years ago.”

A colleague of Aly from the Nile Delta Governorate of Monofiya died about three months ago after getting into an accident while rushing victims to the hospital in an ambulance. Because emergency workers do not have the right to any type of pension, his family now depends on charity to live, Aly said.

One aid responder told IRIN he had to pay for his uniform. Another said that if he gets into an accident while driving an ambulance, he has to pay for the damage himself.

“Some of our colleagues have contracted serious diseases like hepatitis C,” said Saudi Diab, another first aider. “How can you avoid contracting diseases when you have to be close to human blood all the time?”

Blood tests

So far, the government has shown little sympathy for the demands of the emergency first aiders. It responded to the strike by running advertisements in newspapers about vacancies for emergency aid responders and is now requiring all emergency responders who want permanent positions and insurance to undergo blood tests first. The responders, who underwent tests when they first started working, fear they have acquired diseases on the job and will be dismissed if they test positive.

In an interview with IRIN, Khalid Al Khatib, head of the Emergency Section at the Health Ministry, acknowledged his staff worked without permanent contracts or insurance, but said the Health Ministry was not to blame.

We promise that we will give the aid responders permanent contracts and insurance as soon as the government tells us that it has the budget necessary for this

“This was a state policy in the past. The nation’s administrative system is crippled with too many workers, but we promise that we will give the aid responders permanent contracts and insurance as soon as the government tells us that it has the budget necessary for this. The aid responders are doing a great job in fact.”

Trauma

Ahmed Mohamed, the Health Ministry responder, sees a lot in the course of his work. He remembers trying to save a road accident victim in Cairo. When he got to the site of the accident, he saw some of the man’s body parts scattered all around the place.

“Things like this happen to me every now and then,” Mohamed said. “The clashes that have been on the rise after the revolution between demonstrators and policemen leave a large number of victims behind. Some of these victims are in a critical condition. Death has actually become an intrinsic part of my job.”

According to Salah Hozayen, a leading psychologist from Ain Shams University, the consequences for aid responders include compassion fatigue, acute stress reaction and post-traumatic stress disorder. “This makes psychological intervention for these workers indispensible.”

But while Mohamed has shown symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, he has never heard of psychological intervention.

“I fail to sleep at night after a tragic incident,” he said. “Sleeplessness is becoming part of my job too.”

ae/ha/cb
source www.irinnews.org