NL-Aid » Death

Child deaths fall to a new low

admin — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:00:06 +0000

According to the United Nations for the first time the number of annual child deaths have fallen below seven million. “The new child mortality estimates show that concerted efforts to get proven lifesaving care to children work and that, in the 21stcentury, children no longer need to die from preventable causes,” said Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children. “But the new report also shows that the low-cost solutions that could save these lives still aren’t reaching many mothers, newborn babies and children – especially those who need them most. Every American has the power to help change that.”

Earlier this month to capitalize on this historic milestone -and continue to push to see that child deaths fall even lower- Save the Children has launched a new campaign, Every Beat Matters. The new campaign seeks to give Americans easy and concrete ways to help accelerate the progress currently being made to and see an end to all preventable child deaths. The campaign is aimed at creating a more sustainable effort in the fight to end child mortality by seeking donations to directly train front line health workers and provide the tools they need to save millions of children around the world. The campaign not only seeks to support front line health workers, but connects them directly with their donor’s in the international community through the personal blogs of a number of key health workers from around the world. This unique approach to connect social media and front line efforts lets donors not only see the need for their support, but their donation in action saving children’s lives. By putting both a face to the children in need and those who support them, Every Beat Matters is already beginning to make a sustainable impact in decreasing preventable child deaths and increasing child welfare.

The new U.N. report ranks the leading causes of child death as pneumonia, premature birth, diarrhea, childbirth complications and malaria. The report also shows that as deaths to all children under age five have dropped, those occurring in the first month of life have declined more slowly. As a result, newborn deaths now account for 43 percent of child deaths — up from 36 percent in 1990. Overall, the vast majority of child deaths — 83 percent — now occur in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.

Save the Children said it is a critical time for Americans to help maintain momentum following a “Child Survival Call to Action,” convened in June by the U.S. government together with UNICEF and the governments of India and Ethiopia. Healthier children are the foundation for more productive, prosperous and stable communities, which benefit everyone, the agency said.

“We know where the children are that still need basic care to survive birth complications and childhood disease, and we know how health workers can save them,” Miles said. “It’s an issue everyone can get behind because every beat matters.”

AUTHOR: Cassandra Clifford
URL: www.bridgetofreedomfoundation.org and http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: Cassandra [at] btff.org

Martyrs are NOT thugs!

admin — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:06:30 +0000

Hundreds demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Interior (MOI), in downtown Cairo, on the first anniversary of Khaled Said‘s death. Hundreds demonstrated on Monday denouncing continued police torture, in Sheikh Rihan Street, in front of the main gate of the MOI, a place that was a big taboo to even stand at, and which used to give me the creeps before the revolution even when I’m driving by it.

In the picture above, a protester is carrying a banner: “The martyrs who were killed in front of the police stations on 28 January are not thugs, (Interior Minister General Mansour) Eissawi. The thugs are your men.” The official narrative propagated by the regime is that those who tried to storm the police stations on the Friday of Anger, and were killed in the process by police bullets, were “criminals” and “thugs” unlike those who fell in Tahrir. The reality is most of those police stations (torture centers) were attacked by local activists and ordinary citizens.

AUTHOR: Hossam el-Hamalawy
URL: http://www.arabawy.org
E-MAIL: hossam [at] arabawy.org

Second cruel farm murder: Randfontein

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:00:28 +0000

Boeren genocide Ysterkoppie crosses monument Pietersburg

Second cruel farm murder hits Randfontein: owner of Vleikop petting-zoo bird sanctuary, ‘tortured to death’…

The hidden body of a prominent Randfontein Boer who ran a petting- and bird-sanctuary on his smallholding, was found murdered on 4 June 2011 after an extensive search when the unnamed Boer went missing and four former employees also disappeared.

A massive search was launched after the owner of a Vleikop, Dennydale petting zoo and bird-sanctuary went missing on Friday, said police station commander Capt Appel Ernst source: Herald journalist Johan Meyer.

The local Afrikaner community already is up in arms about the wave of armed attacks against the working-class Afrikaner smallholders throughout the region over the past year – and protested at the local law-courts against the bail applications of two black men who were arrested for an earlier farm murder on March 3, when maize-farmer Koos van Rooyen, 63, was shot dead execution-style. Workers found the latest murdered farmer’s body about 1km from the road on Friday – hidden inside a crack inside a rocky outcrop. He was tightly trussed up by his hands and feet, a bag was pulled over his head, he was naked and reportedly grossly mutilated. Bystanders said the ‘method in which he was killed was extremely cruel’.

At the time of publication, the police pathology unit was unable to establish exactly how he had died, as they had not yet managed to extricate his body from the rock ledge. The local Herald newspaper did not have his name at that stage. According to well-informed sources, a former worker who had unsuccessfully sued the farmer, ‘swore revenge’ when the court turned down his application. This black man has now disappeared with three other friends from a nearby township and police are looking for all four black males.

AUTHOR: Adriana Stuijt
URL: http://censorbugbear.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: a.j.stuijt [at] knid.nl

More protests: death toll in Libya now stands at 173 at least

admin — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:32:31 +0000

Death of a young protester in Benghazi.

Tens of thousands gathered in Benghazi on Sunday for funerals of protesters killed by Libyan security forces as Human Rights Watch said overnight violence had doubled the death toll from four days of clashes to 173.
The unrest is the worst ever during Muammar Qadhafi´s 42 years in power. There are no reporters in the city (they are not allowed). The only news therefor comes from witness accounts. They suggst that Benghazi is in a cycle of violence, where people are killed and then, after funeral processions to bury the dead the next day, security forces shoot more protesters.

One Benghazi resident reached by telephone by Reuters on Sunday said that security forces had used heavy weapons. He added that many soldiers and policemen have joined the protests.Another witness, a leading tribal figure who requested anonymity, suggested the security forces remained confined to their control center.

´The state’s official presence is absent in the city and the security forces are in their barracks and the city is in a state of civil mutiny,” he told Reuters. ´People are running their own affairs. Human Rights Watch said about 90 people had been killed on Saturday in Benghazi and surrounding towns, taking the death toll from four days of clashes to 173.

Conflicting accounts were given over poor phone lines but it appeared the streets were under the control of protesters while security forces had pulled back to a high-walled compound, known as the Command Center, from where they were firing. One witness said: ´We will not give up until the regime falls. We call on the United Nations to intervene. Another witness in Benghazi told Reuters thousands of people had performed ritual prayers in front of 60 bodies laid out near Benghazi’s northern court. He said hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children, had come out onto the Mediterranean seafront and the area surrounding the port. “The protesters are here until the regime falls,” he said.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans@planet.nl