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THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER |
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Compiled By Heidi M. Pascual |
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
PRETORIA, South Africa (IPS/GIN) — The figures speak volumes. Between 1999 and 2003, almost 1.5 million of about 20 million registered voters in South Africa were removed from the voters' rolls because they had died — most, it appears, from AIDS-related diseases. The impact of the HIV pandemic on electoral processes was illustrated in a report issued recently by Pretoria-based think tank, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa). Titled HIV/AIDS and Democratic Governance in South Africa, the 241-page document says there is evidence of a sharp increase in mortality among registered voters ages 20 to 49, in some cases on the order of 200 percent. According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), HIV prevalence in South Africa among 15- to 49-year-olds "rose from less than 1 percent to about 20 percent" over the past decade. The pandemic is killing not only voters but also members of parliament (MPs) in the 13-nation Southern African Development Community, of which South Africa is a member. In Zambia, for example, 46 by-elections were held between independence in 1964 and the year in which the first AIDS cases were reported, 1984. Khabele Matlosa of the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, who contributed to the report, said 14 of these were prompted by the deaths of incumbents. Thirty-two resulted from resignations and expulsions. The loss to constituencies was not simply one of political skill. The Zambian Electoral Commission says that each by-election costs the country more than $200,000; but because by-elections are not budgeted for, resources have to be taken from other activities, which are thus compromised. South Africa held 79 by-elections in 2001 and 83 in 2003. The largest number of polls (21) took place in the KwaZulu-Natal province, followed by the Northern Cape (9), Western Cape (9), Gauteng (8), and Free State (8). By May 2004, 60 by-elections had already been held in South Africa. Chirambo said the report did not conclude that every by-election was the result of AIDS; but, looking at general health trends, it was fair to infer that the epidemic had played a role. While Southern Africa only has 2 percent of the world's population, the region has the unenviable distinction of being home to 70 percent of all persons infected with HIV, according to a recent UNAIDS report. — Moyiga Nduru
UNITED NATIONS (IPS/GIN) — The 191-member U.N. General Assembly, the largely ignored policy-making body of the United Nations, is threatening to derail a slew of mostly Western European and U.S.-inspired resolutions condemning human-rights violations. A key committee of the assembly, which previously had refused to take action on resolutions against Belarus and Sudan, took a similar stance recently on another draft resolution, this time on human-rights abuses in Zimbabwe, signaling what some observers call a backlash against U.S. abuse of the world body and international law. The three rejections will be routinely ratified next week by the General Assembly, which represents the views of the overwhelming majority of the member states. U.S. Ambassador John Danforth lashed out at U.N. member states and challenged "the utility of the General Assembly. One wonders, he said, “If there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? And what is it all about?’" he asked. The answer came both from U.N. diplomats and U.S. academics, who are blaming the United States for what appears to be a growing revolt at the United Nations on human-rights issues. The resolution against Sudan, co-sponsored by the 25-member European Union (EU) and the United States, got 74 votes for and 91 votes against. The draft resolution expressed "grave concern" at some of the continued atrocities in the country's western Darfur region, "including forced displacement and arbitrary executions, forced disappearances, torture, and other degrading punishment." The United Nations estimates that 70,000 ethnic African villagers in the area have been killed by Arab militias known as janjaweed (men on horseback). It says 1.5 million locals have fled the violence, some to neighboring Chad. The resolution called upon the Government of Sudan as well as other parties to the conflict to stop the atrocities and co-operate fully with the Mission of the African Union and the mission of the U.N. special representative for Sudan. Speaking on behalf of the African Group, the representative of South Africa told delegates: "Our vote is not an attempt to condone human-rights violations. It is a vote to counter the double standards [on human rights] by the European Union." "The United States, it seems, is paying a heavy price for its contemptuous treatment of the United Nations and for its own transgressions of civil liberties at home and abroad," said Naseer H. Aruri, chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts. The rejection of three resolutions condemning human-rights violations in Sudan, Belarus, and Zimbabwe "could be the start of a new global challenge to the self-designated U.S. role of chief arbiter and human-rights monitor," Aruri told IPS (Inter Press Service). Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, told IPS, "Finally, the member states of the U.N. General Assembly are taking a stand against the administration of [U.S. President George W.] Bush and its wanton aggression, war crimes, and gross human-rights violations all over the world, including here in the United States, where they are trying to establish a police state.” The U.N. General Assembly must now invoke its own “Uniting for Peace” Resolution — which superseded Security Council action on the crisis in South Korea in 1950 — against the Bush administration and proceed to sanction it for its international legal nihilism, said Boyle, author of “Destroying World Order.” "Otherwise, the United Nations will go the same way the League of Nations did in the late 1930s, when it failed to act against [dictators such as] Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, and Stalin," he added. But Yvonne Terlingen of the rights group Amnesty International said her organization is "extremely concerned" that a key committee of the General Assembly should have determined that a human-rights situation as grave as that in Sudan "is not worthy of its consideration. As a global body, the General Assembly must at the very least express its condemnation of human-rights abuses committed by all sides to the conflict and make recommendations to stop these abuses," she said. —Thalif Deen
END OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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