December 14, 2007

United States of Africa on agenda
Cape Town - Uniting the continent in a United States of Africa is one of the key international policy issues to be discussed by the ANC at Polokwane next week. This emerged from discussions at the June policy conference, which also welcomed the establishment of a pan-African fund to promote infrastructure development in the continent. The conference broadly supported the idea of establishing a union government in a United States of Africa "as a step towards a strategic goal of unification of Africa". This ambitious task should be carried out by building regional economic blocs and strengthening the African Union, the policy conference proposed.
Read article in Business Report (South Africa)

December 5, 2007

Nigeria quits talks with Pfizer over deadly drug trials: official
KANO (AFP) - Nigeria's Kano state has quit out-of-court talks with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer over allegedly illegal drug trials that led to the deaths of 11 children in 2006, a senior justice official said Wednesday. "Kano state government is no longer inclined towards holding any direct discussions with Pfizer, its retained counsel or employees," said a letter from justice commissioner Aliyu Umar addressed to Pfizer lawyer Anthony Idigbe. Nigeria alleges that Pfizer used an untested meningitis drug, Trovan, without authorisation on 200 children during a triple epidemic of meningitis, measles and cholera in which over 12,000 people died. It says that the drug testing led to 11 deaths and more than 180 cases of deformity.
Read article at Yahoo News

December 4, 2007

African states refuse to join EU trade deal
South Africa and Namibia said on Monday that they had refused to sign new trade deals with the European Union because it would compromise their sovereignty. The two states said they had refused to join the economic partnership agreements principally to avoid being bound into guaranteeing the EU equal terms to any bilateral trade deals negotiated with other parties in the future. Anil Sooklal, Pretoria's ambassador to the EU, told the Financial Times that a most-favoured nation clause "compromises our sovereignty".
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)

November 28, 2007

Nigeria: Pfizer Blocks Prosecution
Pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, yesterday blocked the Federal Government from prosecuting it on criminal charges by obtaining an injunction restraining police from arraigning its officials. The Federal Government is instituting criminal charges against Pfizer before an Abuja Federal High Court for allegedly making Nigerian children "guinea pigs" for testing its meningitis drug in Kano in 1996. The government said the injunction is preventing it from prosecuting the multi-national company.
Read article at allafrica.com

November 22, 2007

South Africa: Health Director-General Defends Traditional Medicine
Health department director-general Thami Mseleku yesterday defended the government's slow progress in regulating complementary and African traditional medicines, taking on critics who wanted these remedies to be controlled in the same manner as western pharmaceutical products. "There is a war on African traditional medicines in SA," he said. "You have people who are out to discredit these medicines despite the fact that Africans in their millions use them. We have to regulate rather than condemn." As in Europe and the US, South African consumers are increasingly seeking alternatives to western pharmaceuticals, including herbs and nutritional supplements such as vitamins.
Read article at allafrica.com
Comment: Millions of African people increasingly prefer natural alternatives to the pharmaceutical industry's toxic patented chemical drug medicines, recognizing that they are safer and more effective than putting their health into the hands of the multi-billion dollar "business with disease".

November 8, 2007

The EU is trying to trick developing countries into poor trade deals
These negotiations are flawed and unnecessarily hurried, say Alex Cobham and Sophie Powell
Peter Mandelson and Louis Michel, the EU's commissioners for trade and development, are staggeringly disingenuous in their broadside at those raising concerns about the impact on poor countries of the EU's stance in trade negotiations (This is not a poker game, October 31). They claim "The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) that the EU is negotiating with six African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions [will] take a trading relationship based on dependency and turn it into one based on diversification and growth." Such an outcome is unlikely if they insist on using every trick possible to extract more sweeping deals than ACP countries believe are in their best interests.
file:///home/rostendo/Documents/websites_temp/vww.health-peace-justice.org/news/2007/africa.html Read article in the Guardian (UK)

November 8, 2007

Falling in love again
For a whirlwind 26 hours Nicolas Sarkozy attempted yesterday to recapture US hearts with a message tailor-made for Fox News: America can count on France. And for a moment senators listening to the French president's address to a joint session of congress might have been lulled into believing that French and American soldiers had stood shoulder to shoulder in every conflict since the American war of independence. There was no mention of Iraq or of the fact that his predecessor Jacques Chirac had led European opposition to the war. Mr Sarkozy solemnly pledged to stay engaged in Afghanistan for as long as it takes. In fact, France is withdrawing its special forces from the country.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: Sarkozy presented himself as a 'friend of America' but the reality is much more sobering. His visit served to plan the first nuclear war in the history of mankind. To learn more about Sarkozy, click here.

October 25, 2007

Warning Is Sent to AIDS Vaccine Volunteers
S. Africans Among Recipients Who May Be at Higher Risk of Contracting Virus
South African AIDS researchers have begun warning hundreds of volunteers that a highly touted experimental vaccine they received in recent months might make them more, not less, likely to contract HIV in the midst of one of the world's most rampant epidemics. The move stems from the discovery last month that an AIDS vaccine developed by Merck & Co. might have led to more infections than it averted among study subjects in the United States and other countries.
Read article in The Washington Post (USA)

October 20, 2007

'Traditional medicines help serious illness'
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Saturday traditional medicines had huge potential to produce new and alternative treatments for serious health conditions. "People are using traditional medicines and natural therapies in alleviating conditions associated with HIV and Aids, diabetes, malaria and other serious health conditions affecting them," said Tshabalala-Msimang.
Read article at iol.co.za (South Africa)

September 28, 2007

Protests at EU deadline for third-world trade pacts
Anti-poverty campaigners demonstrated in more than 40 countries yesterday to protest at the European Union's insistence on sealing new free trade pacts with the world's poorest countries this year. Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, warned yesterday that 77 of the world's poorest countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific would face "less generous tariff rates" in trade with the EU unless they completed negotiations on new "economic partnership agreements" (EPAs) with Brussels by the year's end.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)

September 22, 2007

Garden project launched in rural KZN town
In a bid to create a better quality of life for residents of Centocow in southern KwaZulu-Natal, health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has launched a food and gardening project in the area. The area was specifically chosen as it has an infant mortality rate higher than the provincial rate of 67 deaths per 1 000 births. The garden project, which employs about 100 community members, aims to bring relief to the malnourished residents through the development of skills such as gardening. The intention is also that the project will eventually supply the local Appollinaris Hospital with fresh produce. Tshabalala-Msimang says apart from the nutritional benefits, the programme will contribute towards food security and job creation.
Read article at sabcnews.com (South Africa)

September 7, 2007

Most people 'want Iraq pull-out'
Most people across the world believe US-led forces should withdraw from Iraq within a year, a BBC poll suggests. Some 39% of people in 22 countries said troops should leave now, and 28% backed a gradual pull-out. Just 23% wanted them to stay until Iraq was safe. In the US, one-in-four supported an immediate withdrawal, while 32% wanted Iraq's security issues to be resolved before bringing the troops home. The BBC World Service commissioned the survey of 23,193 people.
Read article at BBC News (UK)

August 30, 2007

African Traditional Medicine conference underway
Details of South Africa's first approved human clinical study on traditional medicine has been revealed at the three-day African Traditional Medicine conference underway in Durban. The conference is aimed at formulating a national policy on traditional medicine. It is expected to be finalised in less than a year. Traditional leaders are discussing the use of medicinal plants and how they can help treat infections.
Read article at sabcnews.com (South Africa)

August 20, 2007

East Africa: AU Calls Region to Integrate
African economies must integrate if they are to get out of poverty and achieve the much desired development agendas, a leading continental ministerial group has said. African economic integration was the key issue of discussion at a two day Conference of Ministers of the African Union (AU) in charge of Integration (COMAI) recently in Kigali. The meeting was meant to rationalize and harmonize of regional economic communities (RECs) and was organized by the African Union Commission (AU) and the government of Rwanda.
Read article from East African Business Week (Kampala, Uganda) at allafrica.com

August 20, 2007

East Africa: Region to Have Single Currency by 2012
THE East African heads of state yesterday resolved to have a common market and a single currency by 2012, then move on to a political federation. While noting the overwhelming support of East Africans for a political federation, the leaders decided to "move expeditiously towards establishing a common market and a monetary union by 2012." The common market would allow the free circulation of goods and movement of the people within the region. To ease this, one common passport will be used within the five countries.
Read article from The New Vision (Kampala, Uganda) at allafrica.com

August 11, 2007

Pfizer Facing 4 Court Cases in Nigeria
KANO, Nigeria — A security guard in this dusty Nigerian city is living with tragedy – a 14-year-old son whose dazed eyes, slow speech and uneven gait signal brain damage. Mustapha Mohammed says he knows who to blame – Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker. New York-based Pfizer is facing four court cases – two filed by the Nigerian government and two by officials in the northern Nigerian state where Mohammed lives – over a decade-old drug study that included Mohammed's son. The company, which denies any wrongdoing, is accused of using a 1996 meningitis epidemic to push through a sloppily managed drug study that contributed to death in some and infirmities in others.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

August 6, 2007

All communications can now be intercepted under new law signed by Mugabe
Reporters Without Borders regrets that the Interception of Communications Act was finally signed into law by President Robert Mugabe on 3 August. It enables the government to intercept phone calls, emails and faxes with the declared aim of protecting national security. "The promulgation of this law is further evidence of Mugabe's desire to keep news and information under close control," the organisation said. "Zimbabwe had already given itself one of the world's most repressive legislative arsenals as regards press freedom. Now all forms of communication have been placed under surveillance."
Read press releases on the website of Reporters Without Borders (France)

August 3, 2007

Unfair to criticise traditional health cures – minister

HEALTH Minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang and her director-general yesterday stridently defended the role of traditional medicines. Traditional African remedies were being criticised by conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry in a way other remedies were not, she said.
Read article at businessday.co.za (South Africa)

July 30, 2007

Africa: Mark Wants Free Movement of Goods, Persons Within Africa
THE President of the Senate, Senator David Mark had called for the free movement of persons and goods throughout Africa. Receiving visiting Parliamentarians from Namibia, Senator Mark said the removal of all barriers within the continent would facilitate trade and improve cooperation among the countries of the continent. The Namibian delegation led by Hon. Lucia Basson was led to the Senate President by Senator Gbemisola Saraki, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport who used the occasion to praise the Senate President for his gender sensitivity. "We must work towards eliminating Visa problems within our continent. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has started it and it must spread round Africa so that travelling within Africa is made easier," Senator Mark said.
Read editorial from the Vanguard (Lagos) at allafrica.com

July 22, 2007

Globalisation backlash in rich nations
A popular backlash against globalisation and the leaders of the world's largest companies is sweeping all rich countries, an FT/Harris poll shows. Large majorities of people in the US and in Europe want higher taxation for the rich and even pay caps for corporate executives to counter what they believe are unjustified rewards and the negative effects of globalisation. Viewing globalisation as an overwhelmingly negative force, citizens of rich countries are looking to governments to cushion the blows they perceive have come from the liberalisation of their economies to trade with emerging countries.
Read article in the Financial Times (UK)

July 10, 2007

Africa: A United States of Africa?
APPROXIMATELY 50 years after the late Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah, publicly called for a United States of Africa following his country's independence in 1957, the issue of a formalized, structured, African political integration on a continental scale, once more reverberated at the just concluded African Union (AU), Summit at Accra, Ghana. The call for one continental government then, as with today, had galvanized and polarized African leaders and their ideologues into two different, but non-opposing camps. While some had urged immediate action on the issue, others had called for caution. However, everyone agreed that it was an inevitable proposition.
Read editorial from the Daily Champion (Lagos) at allafrica.com

July 4, 2007

Pfizer Asks Nigeria Court to Dismiss Case
Pfizer Inc. asked a court Wednesday to dismiss a state-level civil case seeking US$2 billion in damages over allegations the company conducted a drug experiment that led to deaths and disabilities among children more than a decade ago. Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, has denied those charges, which are at the heart of a separate case filed by the federal government that's seeking US$7 billion.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

July 2, 2007

'Take the bull by the horns' for a new Africa
Mupf-Positions are being staked out concerning the establishment of a pan-African government, at the annual summit of the African Union under way in Accra . Heads of state and government from around the continent began meeting in the Ghanaian capital on Sunday; they will wrap up talks on Tuesday. Of the 53 AU members, about 30 are represented by their leaders. Continent-wide administration is the key issue on the agenda of this year's summit. A 2006 study by the AU, An African Union Government: Towards the United States of Africa, has suggested that such an administration could be in place by 2015 -- fulfilling an aspiration that dates back to the founding of the union's predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity. While some are cautious about the creation of an AU government, others believe it is key to helping Africa emerge from poverty and under-development.
Read article in the Mail & Guardian Online (South Africa)

June 25, 2007

BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree
The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood. "Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived", said the bank. The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

June 5, 2007

Nigeria: Drug Test - FG Sues Pfizer for $7 Billion
Drugs giant, Pfizer, came under greater pressure yesterday when the federal government went to court to seek $7billion in damages and compensation for the 200 children affected by an illegal drug test in Kano . The case is in addition to one before the Kano High Court which also kicked off yesterday. The government accused Pfizer of testing a new antibiotic on the children without the consent of their illiterate parents. The Federal High Court in Abuja said it would fast track the case. The case is being brought by the Attorney General on behalf of the Kano state government.
Read article at allafrica.com

May 31, 2007

Kano govt sues Pfizer, demands for $2 billion - For using 200 children to test drugs
THE Kano State government has sued drug maker, Pfizer, for its alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic in 1996, court papers showed on Wednesday. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, said in a statement that the allegations were untrue and it acted ethically. The attorney general of Kano State filed five claims for damages totalling $2.075 billion before a state high court. The defendants are Pfizer, its Nigerian subsidiary and seven individuals who worked for the companies in 1996. “The plaintiff contends that prior to the treatment by the first defendant (Pfizer), the children treated... which children number 200, did not have the medical conditions or disorders which they suffered after being treated,” the suit said.
Read article in the Nigerian Tribune

May 28, 2007

Mugabe ready to seize foreign companies
Law could force firms to hand over 51% of shares
Wealth would reward supporters, say analysts
President Robert Mugabe's government is preparing to seize majority shares in all of Zimbabwe 's foreign-owned businesses and mines, a move that economists warn would be as damaging as the widespread land seizures in the country. Top of the list of companies expected to be targeted are London-listed mining groups such as Rio Tinto and Anglo American, though recent remarks by Zimbabwean ministers suggested banks such as Standard Chartered and Barclays could also be hit. One minister said "imperialist companies" would be targeted as they had been operating with what the president described as a "sinister, regime-change agenda", according to reports.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: Economists warn the actions would severely hurt Zimbabwe 's already battered economy, which is suffering 3,700% inflation, the world's highest. Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by 50% since 1999, an unprecedented contraction in a country not at war, according to the World Bank.

May 21, 2007

UNESCO official criticises some pharmaceutical firms
A senior UNESCO official has criticised multi-national pharmaceutical firms which conduct clinical trials in developing countries without adequately informing their volunteers of the possible risks involved in such researches. UNESCO's assistant director general in charge of Social and Human Sciences, Dr. Pierre Sane observed that due to lack of ethical standards in scientific researches, such pharmaceutical companies did not bother to obtain informed consent from volunteers participating in their trials. Sane spoke Friday at Kenya's Egerton public University, near Nakuru town, 170 km west of Nairobi where he inaugurated a bio-ethics center. He lamented that thousands of people in Africa were being enticed by money and other goodies to participate in scientific trials without fully understanding their possible risks.
Read article at africa-interactive.net

May 18, 2007

Nigeria: 1996 Drug Trial - Knsg Sues Pfizer for $2.7bn
The Kano state government has sued Pfizer International Limited, its sister Nigerian subsidiary and seven others over alleged use of 200 children as "guinea pigs" in a drug trial in 1996 in Kano. The government is demanding the payment of over 2.7bn dollars from the defendants whom it accused of causing the death of the children among others.
Read article at allafrica.com

May 10, 2007

Sarkozy's proposal for Mediterranean bloc makes waves
A proposal by Nicolas Sarkozy to gather the European, Middle Eastern, and North African countries of the strategic Mediterranean rim into an economic community along the lines of the early European Union has begun making waves even before the president-elect takes office. The initiative, outlined by Sarkozy in a campaign speech in February, went largely unnoticed until he repeated it in his electoral victory address Sunday evening. Plans are still being drawn up, Sarkozy's aides said Thursday, but even at this early stage the proposal has cascading implications for the region. Such a union, even if primarily economic, would necessarily involve the member countries in discussions of controversial issues like Turkish membership in the European Union and illegal immigration via North Africa. It would bring Israel and its Arab neighbors into a new assembly that Sarkozy apparently hopes could tackle the intractable problem of Middle East peace. Initial reactions have ranged from enthusiasm in Spain to cautious approval in Israel to outrage in Turkey, which sees the proposal as a ploy to keep it out of the European Union.
Read article in the International Herald Tribune

May 2, 2007

South African herbs may offer blood pressure benefits
The flora of South Africa is increasingly being studied as a source of novel nutraceuticals, and Tulbaghia violacea (wild garlic) may find a role in helping to lower blood pressure, researchers told the 120th annual meeting of the American Physiological Society. Researcher Irene Mackraj from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban told attendees in Washington D.C., that a study of 16 plants native to the Kwa-Zulu Natal region showed that half of these could find a role in reducing elevated blood pressure (hypertension).
Read article at nutraingredients.com

April 24, 2007

The best way to give the poor a real voice is through a world parliament
Global governance as it stands is tyranny speaking the language of democracy. We need a directly elected assembly
It was first proposed, as far as I can discover, in 1842, by Alfred Tennyson. Since then the idea has broken the surface and sunk again at least a dozen times. But this time it could start to swim. The demand for a world parliament is at last acquiring some serious political muscle. The campaign for a UN parliamentary assembly is being launched this week on five continents.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Click here to go to the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly website

Healers going back to roots
Gauteng ’s traditional healers are to be taught new methods to cultivate plants and harvest them from the wild, in an attempt to ensure that the local medicine chest remains full for future generations. Indigenous medicinal plants have been used for centuries but there is growing concern that wild supplies of some species are being harvested into extinction, or gathered in a way that damages the environment. About 80% of South Africans consult traditional healers, who count local plants among the remedies they sell to their clients.
Read article at businessday.co.za (South Africa)

Moz AIDS patients abandon treatment
More than 70 HIV/Aids patients out of 775 people receiving antiretrovirals in Mozambique ’s Niassa province have abandoned their treatment in preference for traditional medicine, Vista News reported on Friday.
Read article at citizen.co.za (South Africa)

March 16 , 2007

IMF, World Bank want more aid for Africa
The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank urged developed countries on Friday to boost aid flows to Africa and to do so fairly and predictably. "There is a need for more aid, but there is also a need for better aid," IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato told reporters in Cape Town on the fringes of a gathering of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank.
Read article in the Mail & Guardian online (South Africa)