NEWSBYHUASCAR ROBLES

You thought you’d listened to them all – the stories, the witnesses, the gruesome accounts. But just when you thought they were over, they pop up once more, reminding us that in conflict zones, women still get the lower end of the deal.

A new study by the International AIDS Society explores the effects of mass rape on HIV in conflict situations. As one might expect, the study found that women and girls suffer extensively in war-ridden zones and face a major risk of contracting HIV and passing it on to their communities.

The study found that in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone, mass rapes could cause five new HIV infections per 100,000 women or girls each year. The number is even higher in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. The study also revealed that survivors of rape might spread the disease to their partners or their offspring due to the lack of knowledge or proper post-rape care.

It wasn’t a secret. And AIDS activists have long boasted its benefits. The prevention of HIV requires decriminalization of homosexuality in all countries. Now Cuba, a country with deep-rooted, institutionalized homophobia, might be leading the way in social inclusion and HIV prevention too.

The organization that may be responsible for such accomplishments celebrates 10 years of educating and empowering men in Cuba. It bears the patently obvious Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) name and just as straightforwardly has battled ignorance since early 2000.

Co-founder Raúl Reguerio told IPS News that MSM’s goal is to strengthen gay and bisexual men through research and education. The organization relies on peer education to promote safe sex and now claims 1,700 volunteers in 14 provinces scattered on the Caribbean island.

But these landmarks didn't happen overnight for these rabblerousers.

Poverty's got a new enemy: Apps. We sort of knew that would happen. The aid these gadgets provide during catastrophes has been widely known. The donations made through apps alone are just one of many examples. To up the ante, the World Bank is sponsoring a competition to develop new and more sophisticated applications in hopes to boost the institution's clout over poverty.

In a rather unusual, documentary-style video, World Bank President Robert Zoellick challenged  experts to come up with software applications, data visualization tools or other mediums that analyze and help grapple the world’s pressing problems. The competition's name is “Apps for Development” and its programs can be web-based, for mobile, desktop or other uses. There are only two requirement: that it uses the World Bank Data Catalog and that it acknowledges one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MGDs).

This isn’t the first time technology has lend international aid groups a hand. Experts have devised several applications meant to raise awareness — and money — for these important issues. CharityFinder is one of these helpful apps. Through an 1800-database of non-profit causes, user can locate and donate to their favorite charity. Another application, Compassion, lets users profile a child they’d like to sponsor in Africa, South America, Asia or the Caribbean.

What happens when caregivers bribe patients into paying for free treatment? Zimbabwe’s officials are scratching their heads on this one after a report by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) alleged the existence of a corruption scheme in the nation's HIV treatment service.

In an article by IRINNEWS, the ZLHR accused medical personal of asking HIV patients' money in exchange for government-sponsored treatment. The  investigation showed that HIV-positive patients were consistently bribed to pay for antiretroviral drugs or other life-saving care. Patients that refused to buckle went home unattended or opted to pay for private services.

Researchers interviewed 1,024 HIV-positive patients from the Masvingo, Harare, Bulawayo and Manicaland provinces who reported paying up to $100 for access to drugs, diagnostic services and participation in HIV programs. Among the health practitioners involved were nurses, nurse aids, administrative employees and other staff members. Most doctors were apparently at bay.

This isn't the what international aid organizations had in mind when they forecast deadlines for universal HIV and AIDS care.

Without it they’d be in the dark. With it, their food production system buckles. This is the dilemma the Toubul village has to endure at the foot of a dam in the northern Indian state of Manipur.

As in many cases of development gone wrong, the hydropower dam fuels the region with electricity. Because of it, a few roads were also built. But instead of paving the way to responsible industrialization, the dam has severely endangered the livelihoods of Toubul’s families.

According to an article at Infochange, the major setback for this agricultural community is the floods caused on the village’s arable land. To keep the dam operational, the adjacent Loktak Lake is kept at levels that inundate a total of 80,000 hectares of land, according to the Loktak Lake Affected Areas Peoples’ Action Committee.

But it does not stop there.

One word. Then everyone knows.  Soon, families suffer. Neighbors discriminate against you, and finding employment becomes a daunting task. It might sound a bit preposterous, but in the Caribbean, small islands of near-feudalistic societies, these could be the consequences if people find out you’re HIV positive.

Given that, who’d want to get tested -- or treated?

Last week at a symposium on AIDS and HIV, the heads of state of several Caribbean nations discussed how ignorance still makes HIV a public health issue in the region. During the junction -- directed by the University of the West Indies, UNAIDS and other international entities -- the Caribbean leaders pointed out this and other problems the region faces in their plight to stop the disease.

Like most aspects of the Caribbean (where I live and work) the public outcry is a delayed reaction of the global discontent on the inadequate response to AIDS. Last July, during the global conference on AIDS in Vienna, activists complained that nations had failed to improve the methods to curtail the disease, causing the slogan "Broken Promises Kill"  to become the unofficial emblem of the conference.  In America, as discussed at length here on Human Rights, many believe President Obama has also faltered in its promise to increase funds significantly to attack AIDS worldwide.

They don’t beg for pity. At home they’re boss. They wield a hammer by day and at night cradle their children. These are the women of northern Sri Lanka. Some 15 months after the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan authorities stopped, these women have become sort of superheroes. With their husbands lost in the fighting, war widows are taking charge of their families and their neighborhoods, too.

The idea of a female-headed household is hardly implausible. In many South American countries women have organized to gain independence in their male-dominated clans. In Sri Lanka, what's impressive is the speed with which these households grow (some 40,000 in the north, according to the Center for Women and Development).

What forced these women to fend for their families is necessity. A fierce civil war that began in the 1970s claimed the lives of thousands of citizens. Many males died, disappeared or are still in the custody of authorities. What might have been an effective strategy to dismantle the opposition has left homes without their traditional breadwinners.

Enter war widows. They tend to their homes, feed the children and work in hard labor jobs by day. The numbers are increasing: 89,000 of them in the east and north according to official figures.

Should the livelihoods of a few be compromised in the name of progress? For Zambians this is more than a rhetorical question.

This week the IRINNEWS reported that miners in the Luapula Province in northern Zambia were purportedly evicting farmers. According to villagers, miners violently forced them out of the lands where they grow small-scale crops. The land that these farmers claim has belonged to their families for generations is located in mineral-rich regions, attractive to foreign investment.

But Zambia officials see it another way and argue those lands lack proper titles and have been illegally appropriated by locals.

And this is where it gets sticky.

Is England backing down on its long tradition of human rights advocacy? Perhaps not. But budget cuts to human rights monitoring have some wondering.

The stir up began yesterday when the British government confirmed claims that it would cut about $ 870,000 each year from human monitoring procedures at its Foreign Office. What seems like a small amount can put a big dent in the country's humanitarian mission, long considered a staple of England’s foreign policy.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague denies that their commitment to protecting those “less fortunate” has faltered, but admitted budget cuts will affect the production of the agency’s famous Annual Human Rights Report.

The news was enough to spark anger in many former ministers and human rights groups since the report is well known for its exposure of violent crimes, tortures, capital punishment and other abuses in all countries.

“The report is not perfect, Amnesty International Director Kate Allen said on a Telegraph article. “But it offers an annual assessment of the UK’s activities on human rights. Without it there will be a big hole.”

Whether you're a truck driver, a garbage dump worker, or a silver-spoon-fed heiress, there's no denying that climate change will (and likely already is) somehow touching your life. But just as global warming will affect all of these groups differently, so too will government policies aiming to fix the root causes of the problem.

This balancing act is one that a growing number of constituencies are debating. Take the International Transport Workers' Federation, which includes 135,000 members in the air transport, public passenger service and railroad sectors.  At their 42nd annual Congress last week, some transport union representatives staunchly opposed any climate policy they perceived will cut down on jobs or threaten their standard of living. Others, however, said that the transport sector must undergo a "reduce-shift-improve" strategy to reduce its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, fossil fuel-based transportation employs millions around the world, but is also responsible for about 23 percent of the world's CO2 output, according to a study by the Global Labor Institute and the International Transport Federation's Climate Change Working Group.

Their "reduce-shift-improve" strategy, therefore, requires scaling down traditional transport modes in favor of more sustainable options, as  IPS News reports. And GLI and ITF support plausible ways to make this happen. One of them, for example, is to increase high-speed rail transport in favor of CO2-heavy airplanes. Another is to improve vehicle performance and reduce vehicle energy consumption. (Brazil already leads the way in both ethanol fuels and electric cars).

But while many of these strategies will indeed create jobs, they will also obliterate others. This upheaval to the job market cannot be taken lightly, and it's up to nations around the world to figure out how to ease the blow. Because doing nothing, of course, is the least sustainable option.

Photo Credit: José María Cuellar

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