(Video DengueInfo)

(HN, 3/5/13) - Paraguay, north Argentina & Brazil are in dengue fever alert following the confirmation of over 200,000 cases of the mosquito transmitted viral disease so far this year. The situation is considered worse than in previous years because of a deep rise in the confirmed cases, the circulation of all four sero-types (strains) of dengue (1, 2, 3 and 4) having been detected - and this also means the disease keeps expanding.

Paraguay has admitted 14,987 confirmed cases and at least 17 deaths in the first two months of the year with the tendency to increase. The situation is similar in Argentina particularly in the northern provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Cordoba, Santa Fe, Chaco and Formosa, plus the confirmation of the four serotypes. There are no official figures in Argentina since local officials are reluctant to release them fearing a panic situation.

Brazilian figures suggest that more than 200,000 people were infected in the first seven weeks of 2013 compared to 70,000 in the same period last year with the southern state of Matto Grosso do Sul the hardest hit.

Officials said the cases were likely to increase as the rainy season advances the risk of reproduction of the mosquito which transmits the disease, Aedes Aegypti.

However Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha revealed that despite the higher incidence, the cases had been less severe than those recorded last year. He said 33 people had died from the flu-like disease in the first seven weeks of 2013 compared to 41 last year.

According to Mr. Padilha, these figures showed that the authorities were following the right strategies in their fight against the fever. He said extra training given to health care professionals and improvements to the network of basic care providers had clearly paid off.

But Mr. Padilha warned state authorities not to let down their guard as the rainy season could exacerbate the situation, with standing water providing an ideal breeding ground for the mosquitoes carrying the disease.

(MAP: World Health Organization) Apart from Mato Grosso do Sul, seven other states across southern and central Brazil have been affected by the epidemic. More than half of the cases have been caused by the Den-4 strain of the virus, which was first detected in Brazil in 2011.

Mr. Padilha said that because the strain was still relatively new to the country, more people were susceptible to infection. There are four known types of dengue fever (strain). Once people are infected by one type, they become immune to that variation, but not to other strains.

Dengue causes a flu-like illness, occasionally lethal and is the leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries. There is not specific treatment, but early detection, medical care reduces fatality rates of dengue/severe dengue to below 1%.

The disease is spread in tropical and sub-tropical climates, mostly urban and semi-urban areas. The global incidence has grown dramatically and now about half the of the world's population is now at risk.

(Read more at Mercopress)

(Video, IndiaTV)

(Allahabad, India - January 14, 2013) - The Maha Kumbh Mela began this morning with lakhs of devotees as well as ascetics and religious leaders of various orders converging on the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical river Saraswati in Allahabad for a holy dip on the occasion of Makar Sankranti.

The inaugural day of the two-month-long congregation, often described as the “greatest show on earth”, was marked by the first “Shahi Snan” of 13 “akharas” wherein Naga Sadhus - a martial order of ascetics who move about either naked or scantily clad with matted hair and ash smeared bodies - marched to Sangam in processions with their leaders perched atop ornately decorated elephants, horses and chariots and musical bands in attendance in a unique blend of austerity and opulence.

PHOTO: 'Nirvani Akhara' participates in the Shahi Snan/Indian Express)The first to move out were Mahanirvani and Atal Akharas, followed by Niranjani and Anand and then Joona, Awahan and Agni.

They are to be followed by Nirvani Ani, Digambar Ani and Nirmohi and Naya Udasin, Bara Udasin and Nirmal akharas in the same order fixed during the British period following a violent clash among ascetics of different akharas at a Kumbh congregation.

The akharas have been allotted fixed time, ranging from 30 minutes to about an hour depending upon the size of their respective procession, for bathing with routes for going to and returning from Sangam so separated as to ward off possibility of members of rival akharas coming in contact with each other.

Devotees from across the country had started pouring in since last evening and the influx continues despite cold weather and elaborate security arrangements on account of which devotees are being made to park their vehicles several kilometres away from the holy confluence and reach the Sangam on foot.

Vehicular traffic has been banned on most of the roads in the city from yesterday till tomorrow to facilitate movement of people.

(PHOTO: A group of the Alakh sadhus making way towards Akhara for taking alms at Sangam arriving for Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad/Brijesh Jaiswal)The “Shahi Snan”, which is a star attraction of the event, began at around 6 AM as curious, awestruck onlookers gathered on both sides of the over-a-kilometre-long road of metallic chequered plates on which the processions of “akharas” proceeded towards the Sangam.

The crowds were separated from the procession with the help of barriers.

Security personnel kept a steady, though anxious, watch on the movement of the “Naga sadhus” along the route, from watch towers and by monitoring CCTVs as their processions have sparked off violent clashes in the past.

The Mela, held every 12 years, will go on for next two months and will conclude on Maha Shivaratri on March 10.

The administration is expecting a nearly 10 per cent rise in pilgrims attending the mass Hindu pilgrimage this year compared to the previous Maha Kumbh held here in 2001.

Exceptionally large crowds are also expected on Mauni Amavasya (February 10, 3 crore) and Basant Panchmi (February 15, 1.9 crore).

Besides, spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Baba Ramdev and Asaram Bapu, also have planned their visits.

The huge turnout of people, visits of high-profile gurus in addition to the presence of naga sanyasis have increased the pressure on police and administration for smooth functioning of the Kumbh Mela.

A lurking fear of a terrorist strike has further heightened the challenges in recent years.

(PHOTO: Devotees in boats as they gather at Sangam for taking baths on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sankaranti & the start of Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad/Brijesh Jaiswal)“More than 7,000 personnel of central paramilitary forces, including companies of the Rapid Action Force and the National Disaster Response Force, have been pressed into service,”  IGP (Allahabad) Alok Sharma, designated as the nodal officer for security arrangements during the Maha Kumbh, had said.

--- This article first appeared in The Hindu

(Video: UTubeMaill)

(HN, 1/2/13) - Thousands of villagers on Wednesday held a mass burial for seven health workers - five of them women, who were gunned down by militants, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Swabi district, Pakistan, on Tuesday. The killings are the latest in a series of persecution of aid workers in the contentious tribal area.

The dead had been working for the private Pakistani aid group Support With Working Solution, in the northwestern district Swabi, at an immunization centre where children are given anti-polio vaccination. The police said two men on a motorbike followed a van taking the workers home, intercepted it near the village of Sher Afzal Banda where militants opened fire with assault rifles. One child, aged 7 to 8 years, miraculously survived.

Nobody has owned responsibility for the attack, though its suspected that Pakistani Taliban could be behind the strike, since they oppose the vaccination campaigns and Taliban militants affiliated to the Al Qaeda global terror network have been attacking charity and aid workers across the country in recent weeks.

Last year, 15 health and aid workers were killed in Pakistan, making the country one of the most dangerous in the world for aid workers, according to the British-based group Humanitarian Outcomes. Most were women. Development sector experts now express concerns that those working on the ground will shy away from assignments. 

MAP: Swabi district, Pakistan/Wikipedia)“In the past, local volunteers, be they teachers, medical workers or social mobilizers, considered themselves safe and worked hand in hand with foreign aid workers and paramilitary personnel in even the most dire of circumstances,” says Hassan Belal Zaidi, a development and communication specialist, based in Islamabad. “But now, it would not be unreasonable for them to think twice and even refuse to travel to remote parts of the country if they know there is a chance they may get shot.”

Support With Working Solution has suspended its activities. The organization runs dozens of health and education projects, including polio vaccinations, in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Health and education programs, particularly those for girls, are seen as being at particular risk.

Fazal Dad, whose daughter was among the dead, said she always proclaimed, 'Father, if I am not guilty no one can harm me'.

The attack comes days after nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot dead in a series of attacks and forced the United Nations to temporarily recall staff and suspend an immunization campaign from Pakistan, one of just three countries in the world in which polio remains endemic - at least 57 cases were registered in 2012, and there are now concerns about a record number of deaths from measles in the south.

The World Health Organization last year warned Pakistan that it could face travel and visa restrictions and sanctions imposed by other countries if polio continues to spread.

An umbrella organization of 200 aid groups Wednesday demanded greater protection in Pakistan, and they vowed to continue working in order not to encourage “those who are opposed to progress”.

“We have to stand up and foil the nefarious designs of anti-state elements who are bent upon destroying the fabric of civil society,” said the Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network; asking for government protection for charity workers “vulnerable to the menace of terrorism”.

(Video: No stranger to tragedy, on July 11, 2012 the Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network buried another.)

Additionally, on December 22, Bashir Bilour, a senior minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and eight others were killed in a suicide attack on a political meeting claimed by the Taliban. More than 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country in the last twelve years.  

Imtiaz Iltaf, police chief of Peshawar, said officers were preparing a strategy to protect aid workers.  “We are in a state of war. The whole country is facing an insurgency, so we are revising the present security steps and working on a new strategy,” he said.

The recent attacks are likely to further frighten people from working with foreign and Pakistani aid and development organizations, says Bushra Arain, chairwoman for the All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Welfare Association, which counts more than 100,000 registered members.

“We are the backbone of Pakistani health sector. If the attacks continue, with the state showing the inability it currently is demonstrating in stopping us from being targeted, we will stop working,” Ms. Arain says.

“If the attacks by the Taliban continue, there will be widespread de-motivation amongst aid workers, which I am already witnessing,” Mr. Hussain of the Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network says.

--- Reporting based on sources, agencies, HUMNEWS.

(Video: Newsxlive)

By Karan Thapar

(December 22, 2012) - Last week’s protests on the streets of Delhi against the despicable gang rape of a young 23-year-old girl were, no doubt, impressive but they missed the point. Rape doesn’t happen because the police permit it or are absent and unable to prevent it. Rape doesn’t happen because politicians won’t strengthen the law and are insensitive to the victims. Rape doesn’t happen because the courts are slow in meting out justice or the legal process humiliates the victims.  Rape happens because men rape.

That’s the key point the protests forgot.

Rape happens because Indian men don’t respect women and treat them as play-things. And let’s face it, this is a direct result of the way we bring up our men and the way we encourage them to think of women.

The problem begins with parenting. We treat boys like little Gods and daughters as a curse. And when I say we, I really mean mothers who spoil their sons whilst disregarding their daughters. Attitudes inculcated in childhood lead to adolescents, young men and, finally, adults treating women with disrespect and even violence. So the fault begins at home. It begins with our mums and dads. In fact, hurtful as it may sound, it begins with mum.

Saturday’s protestors, courageously facing teargas and water-cannons, should have first ventilated their anger on Indian men. When you hear of elderly women of 80, or baby girls of 3, who have been raped you have to ask: have Indian men become barbarians?

But the anger needs to go further. We need to focus on the way our families bring us up. We need to question the attitudes society encourages. In fact, we need to ask why do so many, who are capable of thinking for themselves, unthinkingly follow suit.

Pause and consider this: why do the police blame the victims before they start to prosecute the rapists? Why do they believe the way a woman is dressed, or the fact that she is out at night, invites rape? The answer is simple. It’s because we as a society do.

Here women are as much to blame as men. After all, it’s mothers and aunts who conclude from a young girl’s dress she’s behaving like a tart. They are the ones who claim that to be seen with a single man is to suggest you are available.

No doubt they’re like this because their mothers before them were the same. The danger is their daughters may not be different.

So I say to the tens of thousands, in fact tens of millions, demanding justice that you are perfectly right to do so but if you really want it question your brothers, uncles, fathers — indeed, question every male you know.

Then, question the society we live in but are also creatures of. We look upon the victims of rape as women who have been shamed. Actually, it’s the rapist who is shameful. But how do we move to a position where women who have been raped are treated with special care and honour whilst the rapist is made an outcast?

Our politicians and the police can’t provide the answers. They can’t show the way. We have to find it ourselves. By changing our thinking and attitudes. By changing the way we are.

So whilst I applaud the protestors, their dedication, energy and anger, I can’t help feel these should be better directed.

Views expressed by the author are personal and first appeared in the Hindustan Times.

(Video: Kabayan LA)

(HN, December 17, 2012) - Today in the Philippines both the Senate and the House of Representatives backed a bill that has been debated for 13 years, and defied the powerful Roman Catholic Church to vote in favor of state-funded contraception.  Many women and supporters celebrated as news of the bill became known, though the two chambers passed slightly different versions of the bill, and they need to agree on a common version to put before President Benigno Aquino, who hopes to sign it into law by the end of the year.

This was the fourth attempt to pass a bill dealing with family planning issues in the heavily Catholic island nation with more than 80% of the population, 'religious'.  The last three bills were blocked by the Church and its political allies - including revered boxer-turned-congressman Manny Pacquiao - who say the law could corrupt `moral values'. They say they will continue to oppose the new bill.  

Supporters say it is a vital human rights measure in the impoverished country with one of the highest mortality rates in the region.  Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a key backer of the law, said that, despite the Church's opposition, "there is no force more powerful than an idea whose time has come".

Opposers such as Bishop Gabriel Reyes say, "What the Church will do is to continue instructing our people, telling them the evils of contraceptives".  "They should not accept it because contraceptives are not pro-poor. It's not pro-children or pro-family. It is harmful against women, children and family."

A government health survey in 2011 found that the maternal mortality rate had risen by 36% between 2006 and 2010. Many maternity hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of births - and the UN appealed to the Philippines earlier this year to pass the bill.

"An idea whose time has come" - (PERSPECTIVE)

 (PHOTO: Mothers stay with their babies at a ward of Jose Fabella maternity hospital in Manila, Sept 12, 2012/NewStraitsTimes)By Manila Times Today

What transpired in Congress on Monday showed us that our lawmakers can get something done if they really want to.

At the House of Representatives, the reproductive health bill was passed on third reading through a vote of 133 in favor, 79 against, with seven abstentions.

The Catholic bishops had vowed to put up a strong fight after their defeat - by a slimmer margin - last week, when 113 House members said yes to the RH bill and 104 said no. Over the weekend, letters were read to the Catholic faithful from their Church leaders who reiterated that the measure was intrinsically evil.  But no, the margin got even wider.

The bishops also hoped that the rabid opponents of the bill at the Senate would be able to sway their colleagues to block it upon second reading, also on Monday.  The public was treated to a last-ditch showcase of tired arguments, the usual  sanctimony and silly hairsplitting about sex having to be safe but not satisfying. There were also funny moments – like when a senator claimed to be the voice of the unborn child.

Nonetheless, the bill passed both second and third reading by a vote of  13-8.

Those belonging to the losing bloc insist that President Aquino dangled incentives to those who would vote in favor of the bill, or that the lawmakers who said yes to it were motivated by political gains.

They refused to acknowledge that support for the bill grew because of its own merit, not because of politics. Lawmakers crossed party lines in expressing their support or opposition to the bill.

Even the President was hesitant to show full support for the measure at the onset.  He tried to change its name to responsible parenthood and to forge a dialogue with the Catholic bishops.  He was not sure he could afford to alienate the men in robes who were his late mother’s staunchest allies.

(PHOTO: People rally outside congress in Manila on August 6, 2012 to press for the passage of the bill/Jay Directo)The battle has been noisy.  It has been put on the table and discussed in the public sphere. Filipinos listened, thought for themselves, formed their own opinion and made their voices heard by the lawmakers they elected to represent them.

The Catholic leaders say it is not over and they will bring the fight to other fora.  Their arrogance and self-righteousness have doomed them to downfall.

In the end, Senator Miriam Santiago, author of the Senate version of the measure, summed it up well when she quoted Victor Hugo, who said: “There is no force more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

The struggle has been long. Monday’s vote is as historic as it has been overdue. Next on the agenda is making sure the RH Law’s lofty objectives are not frustrated by bungled implementation.

"Church unfazed, will fight up to Supreme Court" - (PERSPECTIVE)

(PHOTO: There has been angry campaigning from the Catholic church in the nation of 100 million, where 80% of the population are followers/AFP)By Vito Barcelo with Maricel V. Cruz

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines on Monday said its fight against the Reproductive Health bill was not yet over despite the bill’s approval on third and final reading in the House of Representatives on a vote of 133-79 with seven abstentions.

And voting 13-8, the Senators also approved the same bill, which had been certified as urgent by President Benigno Aquino III, on third and final reading. The RH bill aims to guarantee universal access to the methods of contraception, fertility control, sexual education and maternal health care.

“We will continue the fight in other fora, to the Supreme Court and in the level of individual conscience,” Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros said.  “We have many allies at the Senate and we believe that their conscience will be their guiding principle in rejecting the RH bill”. He said they would be issuing a pastoral letter on Tuesday to be read in all the parishes nationwide.

“The RH bill is a major attack on authentic human values and on Filipino cultural values regarding human life that all of us have cherished since time immemorial,” Olivers said.

“Our position stands firmly on two of the core principles commonly shared by all who believe in God. As religious leaders we must proclaim this truth fearlessly in season and out of season.”

House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez and Batangas Rep. Mark Leandro Mendoza, both critics of the RH bill, said many of their colleagues “had succumbed to the pressure by Malacañang.”

(PHOTO: Nuns protesting in Manila/CatholicTimes)Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon said the 104 congressmen who initially voted No to the RH bill on December 12 during its second reading were “witnesses in This Year of Faith.” 

“They voted according to the dictate of their faith; we can verily recognize them as witnesses in this Year of Faith.”  Pope Benedict XVI declared Oct. 11, 2012 to Nov. 24, 2013 as the Year of Faith.

Saranggani Rep. Manny Pacquiao said his crushing boxing defeat to Juan Manuel Marquez two days before the vote on the RH bill strengthened his opposition to it.

On Monday, Catholic youth groups questioned President Benigno Aquino’s anti-corruption campaign because of his support for the RH bill. “The bill contains excellent provisions, but it is rather like a cold soft drink with a drop of poison,” the groups said. “That poison is its provision on contraception. The RH bill seeks to subsidize the enjoyment of sex without the corresponding responsibilities that it entails.”

- These reports are assembled from The Straits Times, The Manila Standard, Catholic News and the BBC.

(Video: Activists in Paraguay demand justice for Vidal Vega's killing/Parvatiipy,Youtube)

(Asuncion, HN, 12/5/12) - Vidal Vega was a key witness into the investigation of the massacre that led to the removal of Fernando Lugo as Paraguayan president earlier this year.  He was murdered on December 1.

Now the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has condemned the murder of human rights defender Vidal Vega, leader of the Campesinos sin Tierra movement (Landless Campesinos) and president of the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the Curuguaty Massacre and urges the State of Paraguay to investigate and clear up these crimes, and punish those who perpetrated and masterminded them.

(PHOTO: Vidal Vega/MercoSurPress)According to IACHR information, on December 1, 2012, two individuals arrived aboard a motorcycle at the home of Vidal Vega. Police information quoted in news reports indicates the victim's spouse, María Cristina Argüello, answered the door: the two unknown men asked for Vidal Vega and shot him with 12-caliber rifles, in the presence of his family.

The information received also indicates that Vidal Vega was a key witness in an investigation into the Curuguaty massacre, which happened on June 15, 2012, and where 11 peasants and 6 policemen died. The massacre took place during a raid on Campos Morombí, Marina Cue, lands in litigation between the State and private parties.

These events led to the impeachment of former Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, who ended up being removed from office. It was also reported that Vidal Vega was the person responsible for the safekeeping of the documents related to proceedings by the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the Curuguaty Massacre before the National Institute of Rural Development and Land for the adjudication of the “Marina Cue” lands.

The IACHR calls to mind that it is the State's obligation to proactively investigate acts of this nature and punish those responsible. The Commission also urges the State of Paraguay to immediately and urgently adopt all necessary measures to guarantee the right to life, integrity, and safety of human rights defenders in the country, particularly those who work in the Campesinos sin Tierra movement and on the Committee of Relatives of Victims of the Curuguaty Massacre.

(PHOTO: Members of Campesinos sin Tierra protesting/FILE) As the Commission has stated previously, the acts of violence and other attacks perpetrated against human rights defenders not only affect the guarantees that belong to every human being, but undermine the fundamental role that human rights defenders play in society and leave all those for whom they fight defenceless.

The IACHR also calls to mind that the work of human rights defenders is essential to the construction of a solid and lasting democratic society, and that they play a leading role in the process of pursuing the full attainment of the rule of law and the strengthening of democracy.

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

- This article originally appeared in MercoSur Press

(Video: Raw footage from Palau, 12.3.12/TyphoonHunter)

(South Pacific, HN, 12/4/12) - Palau President Johnson Toribiong said this morning the island nation's capital, Koror, escaped major damage from Typhoon Bopha, but he's waiting for an assessment of eastern atolls and islands where waves went inland.

An initial assessment in Koror shows the damage was not extensive, except for downed trees and power disruption since yesterday afternoon, Toribiong said by phone from Koror.

"We've been blessed," Toribiong said, that Koror was spared from major damage.

Koror's TV and radio services are down and flights have been suspended, the president said. Making phone calls to Palau has been challenging as well.

Toribiong said initial reports showed seawater went inland in areas including Kayangel, Angaur and Babeldaob, where residents evacuated to higher ground.

The president said there has been no report of any casualties on the islands.

David Tevid, with the Palau community on Guam, said he heard some homes may have been swept, but that information could not be independently verified by the Pacific Daily News.

Babeldaob is the largest island in Palau with about 6,000 people. Kayangel is the northernmost state of Palau, with a population of less than 200. Angaur, also with a population of less than 200, was inundated with waves that were whipped inland as well, the president said.

(MAP: Track of Typhoon Bopha-Pablo/National Weather Service)He said an assessment of the damage would begin today as Palau is officially declared out of the damaging typhoon’s reach.

Bopha is moving west at 17 mph but is expected to resume a west-northwest motion, according to the National Weather Service.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased to 130 mph. The Weather Service said Bopha is expected to continue to weaken through this evening. As it moves to the Philippines, typhoon-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles from the center of the storm and tropical-force winds extend outward up to 105 miles from the storm's center.

- This report first appeared in the Guam, Pacific Daily News

(Video: DR Congo Crisis Creates Refugee Crisis/Al Jazeera)

By Frank Kagabo 

(Goma, 11/26/12) - Within one week of the capture of the Congolese city of Goma by the M23 rebels, many things have happened. Kinshasa now seems to be taking a different route in dealing with the issue. But the process or attack that led to the capture of the eastern DRC city speaks volumes about what is wrong with the DRC.

(MAP: Lerucher.org) Without doubt, something is fundamentally wrong with the geographical entity known as DRC. The current leadership in Kinshasa cannot wash its hands free of any blame. In addition to that, there is something deeply flawed about how the process of nation building, if at all we should call it that, has been undertaken in Congo over the years. Many Sub-Saharan countries are characterized as fragile states in almost all academic studies and publications, especially by western scholars and Africa area experts.

These states are seen as lacking all the basic tenets of a modern legitimate state. For DRC, as of now it is beyond a fragile state. It is on the path to a failed state in whole. Currently, in many places of the DRC, the state is simply absent.

When this is coupled with competing interests, both of local elites and many others serving foreign interests, it all becomes confusion. The centre in Kinshasa should always be able to make decisions that are of strategic value. But with a new beginning; through regional mediation, there is hope for a better outcome.

The best hope for Congo cannot be in the current noises that the 'international community', mainly influenced by interests in the West, are making. The fact that international institutions and Western governments have come to a conclusion that the current insurrection in eastern DRC is a creation of Rwanda, says much about why they should keep away.

Either they know the source of the problem and seek to callously blame a neighboring country, or they simply do not understand the underlying problems of DRC in particular and the wider Great Lakes region in general.

(PHOTO: Flags at the UN office in Geneva/UNOG)Many Western people with passing interest of Africa believe that conflicts in most of Africa are simply a symptom of the nature of the black man. That Africans have not evolved enough to be able to live harmoniously together. That such conflict is just "how they are". No need for further explanation or study!

These are people who never think that there can be just causes worth fighting for by Africans.

The kind of treatment that follows, like the heaping of blame on a neighbor etc, is all about that perception that is reserved for the African. To explain such perceptions, some Africans have bluntly said it is racism. But others fear to speak out lest they be accused of being "angry black people."

On the particular issue of the Congo conflict, it is important that the United Nations and other Western controlled international organizations seek a better understanding of this conflict before coming up with simplistic reports containing allegations that cannot stand.

They should be helped to get a clear understanding of the region. Again, there is also a need to pause and ask why missions by the UN in this region have always failed. Let's leave aside the issue of what their mandate is: The sheer size of their budgets should ideally be a reason for success. The fact that failure is always what follows such deployments or interventions calls for a radical shift in the nature of such UN operations.

(MAP: US State.gov)The best the UN and other Western-dominated international institutions can do is to support regional initiatives to resolve regional problems. And regional efforts should also be a mechanism for supporting internal process in the affected country, not coming in as an alternative foreign force, because that is also most likely to fail.

Also, the simple fact that the DR Congo army has scattered without putting up a meaningful fight is evidence enough that state institutions in Congo require an overhaul because they are largely dysfunctional.

To solve the current crisis in the DRC will require more than dealing with the original grievances of the mutiny that has now become a major rebel movement. Instead of intervening to complicate the situation, focus should only be in providing meaningful and necessary assistance to jumpstart internal mechanisms for a lasting solution to wider problems that afflict the vast DRC.

- This opinion piece first appeared at AllAfrica.com. Frank Kagabo has worked as a print journalist for four years. He currently works for The New Times Daily in Kigali.

(Video: Diwali 101/National Geographic)

DIWALI FACTS:

- From darkness unto light is the message of Diwali (also known Deepavali); `The Festival of Lights'.

-  During Diwali, “light an oil lamp, sit quietly, shut your eyes, withdraw the senses, concentrate on this supreme light and illuminate the soul,” the message goes.

- The time of year is auspicious. Tradition sees practitioners buying gold and starting new bank accounts.

- The actual day of Diwali, calculated by the luni-solar Hindu calendar, falls this year on Tuesday, November 13. Each of the four days comprising the festival of Diwali is distinguished by a different tradition, but what remains true and constant is the celebration of life, its enjoyment and goodness.

- The illumination of homes with lights and the skies with firecrackers is an expression of obedience to the heavens for the attainment of health, wealth, knowledge, peace and prosperity.

- The festival holiday is celebrated in India, but also in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore and Fiji.

-The day is usually celebrated with a `Ganga Snan' (a good shower) in the morning, prayers, donning new clothes, preparing good vegetarian food, sweets, cultural events at which a number of artists perform, house visits and exchanges of gifts.

By Rahul Verma

(November 13, 2012) - Diwali, the festival of lights and warmth, has different meanings for different people. It is a celebration full of festivities, illumination and lots and lots of sweets. It could be a long-awaited get-together for some friends and families, exchanging of gifts with relatives, friends or business interest to please them. While you are busy celebrating Diwali with sweets and lights, remember that festivals are not only about enjoying or partying with your friends or near and dear ones but also about spreading joy and warmth around and thinking about the deprived and make some contribution towards society according to your capabilities.

(PHOTO: An Indian girl tries to reach a lantern displayed for sale at roadside stalls, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012/Rajesh Kumar SinghWhen everyone is in a festive mood there are some children in hospitals who wake up every morning with a hope that they will soon go home, but sometimes the days become months or years. When the whole world is busy in celebrating the festival of lights there are intravenous tubes that are running to their tiny bodies keeping them bound to the beds of the hospitals.

When we are planning lavish parties or buying white goods, children in hospitals dream of riding a bicycle or playing with friends in a playground and enjoying the festivities with their families.

Unfortunately it becomes a more heart-rending experience for children admitted to government hospitals as when their siblings and friends are enjoying at home they are required to live in hospitals which are in filthy conditions and grossly neglected and one can imagine how difficult it is for a child to come out of the mentality and trauma of being sick. When our children are busy in celebrating Diwali, there are some children who are sharing the same bed with two or three other kids, when every house is decorated with charming rangoli paintings with diyas, and colourful electric bulbs, they are left with a common sight of untidy bed sheets, general waste lying here and there in the corridors with disastrous toilet facilities. More worse is the attitude of the doctors and the sisters, who sometimes showers frustration of being working on a holiday in the hospital. In fact doctors are the most educated person in our society but in majority of the cases in Government hospitals their behavior with the patients is totally ignorant.

(PHOTO: Rangoli decorations, made using coloured powder, are popular during Diwali/Wikipedia)Parents are already in deep shock asking the same question again and again, `God why my child'? They hardly find any friend or a relative visiting them in the hospital when the duration of stay becomes a little longer, yes but for the courtesy sake they will surely call you some time with a message that please let them know if anything required. Also on weekends when they are going to a mall or to watch a movie they will definitely spare some time to meet you with the condition that the hospital `is on the way.

In this era of smart phones, and gadgets it is true that we are progressing, getting sophisticated but perhaps our society is also loosing morality and ethics, there is are very few who are really concerned about destitute section of the society.

While we are busy celebrating Diwali with sweets and lights, we should remember that festivals are about spreading joy around and can always make some contribution towards the society according to our capabilities.

Diwali is an excellent time to start thinking about helping other people, especially who are in urgent need of support and care. This could include providing food, clothing and toys for families to enable them to experience the joys of the Diwali festival. Giving warmth, love and hope. That's what Diwali should be all about.

(PHOTO: Hindu holy men, sit in tractors as they arrive ahead of the Kumbh Mela, in Allahabad, India, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012/Rajesh Kumar Singh)Perhaps we are living in this misconception that spending hundreds thousands on God shall make him happy. Little children battling with life threatening diseases does not require too much but your smile along with few sweets or packets of crayons or a drawing book can bring instant smile on their face, it also boost the morale of the parents, some kind words of yours work as miracle to them.

So let's celebrate this Diwali as a festival of kindness and spread smiles and happiness around by visiting some children in hospitals with, remember what Mother Teresa said "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

- This opinion piece first appeared in The Times of India. Rahul Verma is co-founder of Uday Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to children with birth defects.

(Video ABCNEWS Australia)

(HN, November 8, 2012) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s now famous misogyny speech in parliament last month is still creating waves abroad, with the prime minister congratulated by other world leaders during an international summit.

Ms. Gillard says French President Francois Hollande and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, among other leaders, approached her at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Laos to commend the speech, in which she branded Opposition Leader Tony Abbott a misogynist.

The prime minister’s fiery 15-minute address to the Australian parliament early last month went viral worldwide, making news headlines and dominating social media.

“The president of France congratulated me on the speech, as did the prime minister of Denmark, and some other leaders, just casually as I’ve moved around, have also mentioned it to me,” Ms. Gillard told ABC radio on Wednesday.

Video of Ms Gillard’s outburst was watched more than 300,000 times on YouTube in just one day, and it made headlines in the US, India, Canada, UK and South Africa.

On one prominent American website, Jezebel, Ms. Gillard was described as a “badass motherf****r”.

Interviewed for the latest edition of Marie Claire magazine, the prime minister said her office had been besieged with emails and phone calls after the speech went viral on the internet.

“I’m taking it all with a bit of a wry smile,” she said.

“I’m certainly taking `badass’ as a compliment. I think that’s how it was meant.”

Ms. Gillard said she had heard that a Melbourne all-girls school had watched the speech during a class and “spontaneously broke into cheers and applause at the end of it”.

“So that touched me,” she said.

Ms. Gillard said what motivated her to make the speech was the “double standards and the lecturing” from Mr. Abbott.

-- This article first appeared on the Australian Times website via the AAP.

(Video: Global Climate News)

(November 1, 2012) - Many environmentalists are blaming climate change for the appearance of superstorm Sandy that has wreaked such devastation on New York, New Jersey and 15 other states along the United States Atlantic Seaboard up through New England. Some meteorologists disagree, contending that Sandy would have occurred even without a warming climate.

Fred Krupp, who heads the Manhattan-based nonprofit group Environmental Defense Fund, said today, “Sandy is not just a weather disaster but also a climate disaster.”

“As a consequence of global climate change caused by human activities, sea levels are higher, the Atlantic waters are warmer, and there’s more moisture in the atmosphere – three of the reasons this storm packed such destructive force,” said Krupp.

The death toll due to Sandy is up to at least 50 people, and the number could still increase as search and rescue workers complete their grim tasks.

More than 8.2 million households lost power in 17 states as far west as Michigan after the superstorm made landfall near Atlantic City Monday night.

(PHOTO: Half of NYC is dark after superstorm Sandy/Andrew Burton) Nearly two million of those households are in New York City, where Con Edison shut off the power and steam, used to heat high-rise buildings, to lower Manhattan.

Four nuclear power plants in New York and New Jersey were affected – three shut down and one on Alert status due to flood waters and power outages.

Consolidated Edison said electricity in and around New York could take a week to restore.

For two days, the New York Stock Exchange was closed but finally reopened on Wednesday. In a sign that some semblance of normalcy is returning to New York, the Stock Exchange plans to open tomorrow with Mayor Bloomberg ringing the opening bell.

Duncan Niederauer, CEO, NYSE Euronext said, “We are pleased to be able to return to normal trading. Our building and systems were not damaged and our people have been working diligently to ensure that we have a smooth opening tomorrow. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and communities suffering in the wake of this terrible natural disaster.”

The complete shutdown of mass transit brought the city to a standstill. Buses began running again on some routes Tuesday afternoon, the first move towards in restoring New York City’s public-transit system. Officials said restoration of full service, including the flood-damaged subways, could take days.

All four major airports in the New York-New Jersey area were closed for two days, but JFK and Newark airports reopened on Wednesday at noon. Laguardia and Teterboro airports are still closed until further notice.

(PHOTO: Laguardia airport's runway underwater after Sandy strikes/JetBlue)All this is the result of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, which burdens Earth’s atmosphere with megatonnes of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, environmentalists contend.

Bill McKibben, who heads the healthy climate advocacy group 350.org said today, “The fossil fuel industry is causing the climate crisis, leading to more extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy. We’re calling on Big Oil to stop spending millions to influence this election and donate the money to disaster relief instead. Instead of funding climate silence, they should be funding climate relief.”

“The fossil fuel industry has spent over $150 million to influence this year’s election,” said McKibben. “Last week, Chevron made the single biggest corporate political donation since the Citizens United decision. This industry warps our democracy just as it pollutes our atmosphere. And we’ve had enough. In the coming year, we’re going to fight both forms of this pollution. Our biggest organizing effort ever begins one week from tomorrow, the Do the Math tour that will, we hope, ignite a long-lasting campaign to force the fossil fuel industry to change.”

(PHOTO: Sandy from space on Monday/NASA)“Sandy is what happens when the temperature goes up a degree. The scientists who predicted this kind of megastorm have issued another stark warning: if we stay on our current path, our children will live on a super-heated planet that’s four or five degrees warmer than it is right now. We can’t let that happen,” said McKibben. “So let’s get to work.”

But Dan Kottlowski, an expert senior meteorologist with Accuweather, is not convinced that the destructive storm is the result of a warming climate. He says it was so damaging not because of its strength, but because of its track.

“The storm track for Sandy was pretty common for an October storm,” Kottlowski told ENS. “But most hightail it out to the east. We’ve never seen it turn to the northwest before, and that’s why it struck New Jersey and New York Harbor. Climate change would not explain that.”

“I don’t think you can say one storm is the result of the impact of climate change,” Kottlowski said. “If we didn’t have a warming climate would this have happened? My answer is yes, it still would have happened.”

He explained that hurricanes are more likely to form over warm oceans and the Atlantic Ocean goes through a cycle of warming every 40 years. “We’re in the middle of that cycle right now,” Kottlowski said. “Most climatologists think we’ll have a warm part of the cycle for the next 15 years. The same thing happened in the 1950s and the 1930s. It’s not related to climate change.”

Kottlowski said to determine if Sandy was in fact caused by climate change, we will have to wait another 15 years to find out if the Atlantic Ocean cools down when the cooling part of its cycle would normally come around.

“The number of tropical cyclones across the world has not changed during the past 100 years, the only place it has changed is over the Atlantic Ocean and that has to do with the ocean’s salinity,” he said.

Dr. William Gray at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science maintains that “CO2 increases are not responsible for Atlantic SST [sea surface temperature] and hurricane activity increases.”

(DIAGRAM: The atmospheric exchange between oceans and air/NOAA)In his forecast of Atlantic hurricane activity in the second half of the 2012 hurricane season, Dr. Gray says, “We have no plausible physical reasons for believing that Atlantic hurricane frequency or intensity will significantly change if global or Atlantic Ocean temperatures were to rise by 1-2°C. Without corresponding changes in many other basic features, such as vertical wind shear or mid-level moisture, little or no additional TC [tropical cyclone] activity should occur with SST increases.”

“Atlantic SSTs and hurricane activity do not follow global mean temperature trends,” contends Dr. Gray.

But many environmentalists are not persuaded.

Dan Lashof, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Fund, blogged, “This mega-storm is just one more sign of the new normal that will continue as long as we keep avoiding addressing climate change. Just like the unprecedented droughts, flooding and heat we all experienced this year, storms like Hurricane Sandy is what global warming looks like. This is the new normal.”

The Surfrider Foundation today spoke of “the real and devastating effects that are being caused by rising sea levels.”

“While the superstorm is an extremely rare event that cannot be directly blamed on climate change, our warming oceans are creating the latent potential for more frequent and more powerful storms,” the national organization of surfers said in a statement. “When powerful storms combine with increased sea level rise and intense coastal development, they provide the ingredients for massive destruction, loss of life and major economic losses.”

Krupp, with the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “Today, as we rush to ensure the safety of our loved ones and communities, we should remember that unless we finally get serious about climate solutions there can be no lasting protection from the ferocity of our warming world.”

---This article first appeared on the Environment News Service website.

By Catherine Wilson

BRISBANE, Australia - For the first time in 48 years, a Pacific Small Island Developing State (PSIDS) is gearing up to assume chairmanship of the Group of 77 developing nations plus China.

In 2013, the Republic of Fiji – located between Vanuatu and Tonga in the South Pacific and currently under a military government led by Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama – will take leadership of the largest intergovernmental coalition within the United Nations, replacing the incumbent chair, Algeria.

“Fiji’s election to the Chair of the Group of 77 and China (G77) for 2013 demonstrates the international community’s (confidence in us) to preside over the 132-member organization in its endeavour to advance international matters that are of great importance to all developing countries,”  Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, Fiji’s minister for foreign affairs and international cooperation, told IPS.

The G77 was formed in 1964 with 77 founding member states, representing a collective ambition by developing nations to advance their international voice and influence on world trade.

(MAP: G77 Nations/Wikipedia) Since then, the G77, now comprising 132 member states, has championed South-South cooperation as a key strategy to boost standards of living and economic fortunes in the global South.

The intergovernmental group, which has identified the eradication of poverty as one of its greatest challenges, was also influential in developing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

According to a United Nations report last year, South-South cooperation has boosted development and investment between developing countries and is a formidable driver of economic growth.  Between 1990 and 2008 world trade expanded four-fold, while South-South trade multiplied more than 20 times.

Fiji’s rising role

Fiji’s new role within the UN was confirmed at the G77 foreign ministers’ meeting in New York on September 28.

The island state, with a population of about 868,000 spread over more than 330 islands, has an economy dominated by the sugar and tourism industries, as well as the highest national human development ranking within the Pacific sub-region of Melanesia.

However, an ongoing struggle for political power between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians – descendants of nineteenth century Indian immigrant laborers – has fuelled four military coups since 1987.

(MAP: Melanesia/Wikipedia) During the most recent one in 2006, Bainimarama, commander of Fiji’s military forces, took over the presidency and dissolved parliament in an alleged attempt to stifle corruption.

His declared aim is to reform the race-based electoral system and draft a new constitution, following nationwide consultations, ahead of planned democratic elections in 2014.

But Fiji’s refusal to hold democratic elections by 2010 led to international sanctions and its suspension in 2009 from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional intergovernmental group of independent and self-governing states.

The government of Fiji currently receives significant economic aid and political support from China.  It also remains politically engaged in the South-west Pacific as an active member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), an intergovernmental group comprising Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Nikunj Soni, board chair of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP), an independent regional think tank based in Port Vila, Vanuatu, told IPS that with the emergence of a range of advocacy platforms, such as the MSG and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Pacific Islands Forum was no longer the sole organization through which the islands could coordinate a voice.

“Fiji’s chairmanship of the G77 will give the country’s leadership a chance to reach out to the rest of the region by way of consultation in order to make sure a regional voice can be heard on the international stage,” Soni told IPS. “The Pacific will have a rare opportunity to represent itself on the global stage…”

(MAP: Countries of the Pacific Island Forum/Wikipedia) This is becoming increasingly important for the Pacific Islands as neighboring superpowers like China and the US set their sights on the archipelago as a crucial geo-strategic location. China is increasing its investment and presence in the islands, while the U.S. has made moves to renew its engagement with the Pacific region in areas ranging from aid to security, and has deepened defense ties with Australia.

The Pacific Islands are also rich in mineral, forest and marine resources. The PIPP emphasized that increasing the region’s international voice on issues of security and resource management in the context of climate change was a top priority.

“With the Pacific Ocean covering half of the world’s ocean area and one third its total surface area, the region contains some of the largest unexploited natural resources and some of the most climate vulnerable nations on earth,” Soni explained.

“It remains important that small island developing states are not used by larger powers as proxies for their own geopolitical battles. At the same time, we must be able to protect our natural resources for the benefit of our own peoples.”

The global influence of the G77 will only increase as developing countries, especially Brazil, China and India, emerge as the new leaders of world economic growth. According to this year’s UN global economic outlook, developing countries will grow an average of 5.9 percent in 2013, while developed countries are likely to average only 1.9 percent growth.

But this year’s G77 Ministerial Meeting in New York also highlighted many challenges ahead for the coalition of developing nations, including the impact of the global financial crisis on world trade, food security, the fight against poverty, technology transfers and efforts to combat the severe effects of climate change.

“More recently, the G77 has taken on negotiating positions in areas of climate change and sustainable development, the two areas which PSIDS focuses on in New York,” Kubuabola stated. “These are the two areas Fiji wishes to place emphasis on to ensure that the interests of all developing countries, including those of PSIDS, are effectively addressed.”

During a speech at the G77 meeting in September, UN Under-Secretary-General for economic and social affairs, Wu Hongbo, pointed out that the G77 also had an influential role to play in drafting the global Sustainable Development Goals, one outcome of the Rio+20 Earth Summit held in Brazil in June.

-- This article first appeared on InterPress Service.

(Video: World Food Programme)

Rome: Global governance of food security and a so-called new world food order were on the table at World Food Day talks held by the United Nations on Tuesday in the face of drought and high prices.

The United Nations focused the talks in Rome on lowering food prices which have been pushed up by droughts in Australia and the United States and a drop in harvests in Europe and the Black Sea region.

A meeting at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization chaired by French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll brought together ministers from 20 countries including major producers and import-dependent developing countries.

“The key is to ensure global governance on food issues,” Le Foll said.  “Discussions were held on transparency in agricultural markets, the coordination of international actions, response to the global demand for food and the fight against the effects of volatility,” he added.

FAO chief Jose Graziano Da Silva said: “Food prices and volatility have increased in recent years. This is expected to continue in the medium-term.”

He said new mechanisms for stronger global governance of food security that are being set up were part of “a new world order that needs to emerge.”

(PHOTO: YemenFoxNet)But there were divisions among participants at the meeting, with the United States voicing strong opposition to the proposal of setting up strategic food reserves in particularly vulnerable countries, to be tapped when prices spike.

Graziano Da Silva said establishing reserves could be “an instrument to avoid poor countries paying the price” of price rises — although FAO’s official position is only in favor of setting up “small emergency stocks”.

“If you bolster the size of the stocks, you increase difficulties in terms of costs and management,” said FAO’s David Hallam, who is in charge of markets.

Millions go hungry

Around 870 million people in the world suffer from hunger, even though gains have been made in recent years when the United Nations estimated 1 billion people on the planet were not getting enough to eat. Still, the number is troubling.

FAO said the talks were aimed at boosting “the effectiveness of measures to address food price volatility and to reduce its impact on the most vulnerable.”

Global food prices rose by 1.4 per cent last month, after holding steady for two months, as cereals, meat and dairy prices climbed, the FAO said earlier.

The food import bill for poor countries is therefore estimated to rise by 3.7 percentage points from last year to $36.5 billion.

The FAO estimates that about 870 million people in the world - or one in eight humans - suffer from hunger, saying the figure is “unacceptably high” even though it has gone down from more than a billion in the early 1990s.

The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, said that figure rises to 1.5 billion people if you include malnourishment which hampers the physical and psychological developments of children.

(PHOTO: Agriaim)When global food prices rise as they are doing now “it is not just that there are fewer meals but the meals are also less varied,” De Schutter said, adding: “This threat is not really seen as a priority but it should be.”

Graziano Da Silva said it was vital to help small farmers as a way of combating hunger and World Food Day events highlighted the crucial role played by farming cooperatives in the developing world.

He underlined the fact that the figure of the number of people suffering from hunger had stopped going down over the past five years.  “The numbers are increasing in Africa and the Middle East,” he said.

“We cannot tolerate this in a land of plenty where production is sufficient for everyone,” he said, adding that the funds for aid and agriculture budgets had gone down over the past three decades, stranding small farmers.  “They have had to fight to adapt,” he said.

Graziano Da Silva added that promises made by governments to eradicate hunger made when prices hit record highs in 2007 and 2008 had not been kept.

The non-governmental group Action Against Hunger said that “some 100 million more people have become under-nourished” due to the price rises of 2008.

In a message to mark World Food Day, Pope Benedict hailed cooperatives as “an expression of true subsidiarity” and urged the international community to come up with legal and financial mechanisms to strengthen them.

The pope also emphasized the “vital role” played by women in cooperatives.

- This article appeared in GulfNews.

(PHOTO: A boat carrying asylum seekers & migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. UNHCR/L.Boldrini)

“The capsizing is a reminder of the risks faced by people desperate to escape poverty, conflict and persecution,”  Adrian Edwards, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva.

“As in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, the seas around Mayotte are the scene of irregular movements of migrants and refugees searching for a better life or protection from persecution and war.”

This is the second such tragedy in a month, bringing to 69 the number of people reported dead or missing after incidents off Mayotte this year.

For decades, people have been using small open vessels known as “kwassa-kwassa” to sail from the Comoros to the more prosperous French territory of Mayotte, according to UNHCR.

(PHOTO: A general view of the island of Mayotte/UNHCR)Most of these movements take place without the requisite documentation and involve considerable risk to those attempting them. Asylum-seekers account for a small proportion of these movements but their numbers have been increasing in the last two years, Mr. Edwards said.

UNHCR said that last year there were some 1,200 applications for asylum in Mayotte, 41 per cent more than in 2010. The largest proportion of applicants – about 90 per cent – came from the Comoros, with citizens from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Rwanda and Burundi, accounting for the rest.

- This report first appeared at the UN News Centre. 

Welcome to Mayotte

Mayotte:  Is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre a smaller island, Petite-Terre, and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique. Mayotte's area is 374 square kilometers and with its estimated 194,000 people is very densely populated. Its biggest city and prefecture is Mamoudzou. The territory is geographically part of the Comoro Islands, but has been politically separate since a 1974 referendum in which it elected to remain under French rule. The territory is also known as Mahoré, the native name of its main island, especially by advocates of its inclusion in the Union of Comoros. In a 2009 referendum, the population overwhelmingly approved accession to status of department. On March 31, 2011, Mayotte became an overseas department. (By Alex Ohan)

(PHOTO: Chuck Feeney) When Chuck Feeney sold Duty Free Shoppers, the multibillion-dollar business he had cofounded 36 years earlier, to Bernard Arnault, head of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, he didn’t rush out and spend his $1.67 billion windfall on luxury. Instead, he turned full-time philanthropist.

“I became convinced that there was greater satisfaction from giving my money away and seeing something come out of the ground, like a hospital or a university,” he says, sitting in the Dublin offices of Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation he created in 1982. “It just seemed logical to put the money to good use rather than putting it into a bank account and letting it accumulate and accumulate.”

Wearing a $15 digital watch and a crumpled shirt, he could easily be mistaken for one of the American tourists outside. “This watch tells me the time better than a Rolex. When you are 81-years-old, you don’t really need a lot of the trappings of wealth,” he says.

The Irish-American from New Jersey has spent most of his life doing everything he can to stay out of the limelight. This has included forcing recipients of $6.2 billion in donations from his Atlantic Philanthropies foundation to pledge not to reveal the source of their funds or risk losing them.

But following a decision in July by the charity to donate its final $1.3 billion by 2016 and wind up its global operations after 30 years of giving, he wants to talk about his philosophy of “giving while living”. Well, sort of. Shy and self-effacing, Feeney generally prefers asking questions to answering them; he evidently likes giving his money away better than giving interviews.

Feeney founded Atlantic Philanthropies when Duty Free Shoppers was expanding aggressively across the US, Asia and the Middle East. Two years after launching Atlantic, when he was on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, he secretly decided to sign over the vast bulk of his wealth and his 38.75 per cent stake in the company to the charity, leaving himself $5 million to live on.

The transaction was completed secretly in 1984 in the Bahamas and remained undiscovered for more than a decade, leading Forbes magazine wrongly to list Feeney as a billionaire and one of the richest individuals in the US.

Feeney was inspired by the essay Wealth by Andrew Carnegie, in which the 19th-century Scottish-American industrialist argued that the rich had a responsibility to distribute his wealth.

“It is logical for a US person to give their money away while they are alive as the government will take it from you when you die in taxes,” says Feeney.

Arnault might agree. This month, the French businessman caused an uproar when it emerged that he had applied for Belgian citizenship. One mooted explanation was the country’s favourable inheritance tax regime. “That guy [Arnault] is in the news today because he is trying to get residency in Belgium,” says Feeney, grinning. “You’d have to pay me to live there.”

Still, he defends the right of the wealthy such as Arnault to take “advantage of opportunity” in structuring their tax affairs. “Everybody sets up a structure that fits their purposes,” says Feeney, who based his own company and charity offshore, reducing their exposures to US taxes.

Is it hypocritical for tax exiles to become involved in philanthropy?  “I bet it is the government saying that,” he retorts.

Still, he is critical of the culture of greed and banking, which he says contributed to the financial crisis. “There is a need to fix certain things and make sure that excesses aren’t the norm,” he says.

He points to the ghost estates that blight the Irish landscape as evidence of the gross materialism that took over the country. But the Irish crash has not made him regret providing $1.5 billion in donations to the country. “It does seem unfair but that is what life is about,” he says.

Feeney’s philanthropic achievements have ranged from building hospitals in the US to increasing the number of nurses in South Africa. But it is probably in the education sector that the charity has had the biggest impact. This year Atlantic Philanthropies gave $350m to Cornell University, Feeney’s alma mater, to build a new high-tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York. It has also pumped almost $1 billion into education projects in Ireland.

The educational focus perhaps reflects Feeney’s own experiences of charitable giving. “I was with a special services unit in the Korean war and when I got out the biggest thing I got was a GI scholarship,” says Feeney, who was the first person in his family to attend university. Born into a working-class neighbourhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey during the Depression, Feeney says he saw how people struggled to make ends meet. To make a few dollars during his childhood he shovelled snow, cut lawns and caddied. “My claim to fame was I never lost a golf ball,” he says.

His entrepreneurial activity continued when he went to college, where he earned the nickname “sandwich man” for selling lunches to help pay his way.

When he travelled to Europe to study he spotted a gap in the market and began selling drinks, perfume and cigarettes to sailors on US ships stationed in Europe in the 1950s. “The Navy supply officers liked an American accent."

Feeney’s big break came a few years later when he won the concession to operate a duty-free business at Honolulu airport, which was on the cusp of a Japanese-led tourist boom. In the decades that followed, DFS expanded globally.

Aside from his philanthropic work, Feeney made an important contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland. He became involved following an IRA bomb in 1987, which killed 11 people in Enniskillen, the town were his grandparents were born. At a time when Sinn Fein was ostracised due to its links with IRA violence, Feeney contacted Gerry Adams, the party’s leader, believing he was serious about pushing towards a peace process.

“We thought this guy could deliver what he said he could deliver. We were lucky to have Bill Clinton as president who bought the idea,” says Feeney, who funded Sinn Fein’s Washington office with a personal donation rather than a grant from his charity.

As he begins to wind down the activities of Atlantic Philanthropies, Feeney is turning his attention to persuading others to follow in his footsteps.

He is a signatory of the Giving Pledge, an initiative devised by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to persuade wealthy Americans to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. “There are only about 80 families signed up for this. We need a multiple of what we are doing to achieve our purpose,” he says.

But as he approaches his 82nd birthday, has his philosophy changed with age? “I can’t chase girls anymore because I realise now that I can’t catch them,” he says. “I don’t think age has changed my outlook - you are supposedly older and wiser but have to roll with the pitch.”

-- This article first appeared in GULFNEWS