Today, over 22,000 children died around the world

Over 22,000 children die every day around the world.

That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 4 seconds
• 15 children dying every minute
• A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 10 days
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 18–43 days
• Just under 8.1 million children dying every year
• Some 88 million children dying between 2000 and 2009

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

Best regards,

Tauqeer Ahmed

"Children are said to be angels."

Pharmaceutical Corporations and Medical Research

For a while now, pharmaceutical companies have been criticized about their priorties. It seems the profit motive has led to emphasis on research that is aimed more at things like baldness and impotence, rather than various tropical diseases that affect millions of people in developing countries.

Unfortunately, while a large market therefore exists, most of these people are poor and unable to afford treatments, so the pharmaceutical companies develop products that can sell and hence target wealthier consumers.

In addition, there is concern at how some pharmaceutical companies have been operating: from poor research and trial practice to distorting results, and politically lobbying and pressuring developing countries who try to produce generics or try to get cheaper medicines for their citizens.

Best Regards,

Tauqeer Ahmed

"Life has lost its importance."

Nuclear Weapons Saga

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), every country does have a right to nuclear development for peaceful purposes (i.e. nuclear energy). The fear is that countries may use this as a guise for weapons development. This is what the Bush Administration has been concerned about in the Iran example.

More fundamentally, if (as also noted further above) powerful countries, such as the US itself, are pursuing nuclear weapons options (defying various nuclear non proliferation treaties in the process), this raises arguments that many have made in the past, such as:

• Surely others have a right to develop nuclear weapons as well?
• Why should only a few powerful countries have them?
• Won’t they use their position to pressure or bully other countries to their interests?

North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel, for example (and possibly Iran, depending on how things progress) would seem to directly or indirectly support these questions for their own interests.

The right to nuclear weapons will be an attractive argument for those who feel threatened by the current world powers, or for those with more ambition. Furthermore, the world’s foremost nuclear powers appear unwilling to provide sufficient help. Some, such as the US, appear to reverse and actually develop more weapons, citing reasons such as fear and mistrust of others.

In that context, it would be hard to argue against other countries also demanding such terrible weapons. The US may even find it will have to accept that others will want nuclear weapons too, as they will recycle these same concerns, often back towards the US, adding the charge of hypocrisy if the US opposes them.

Perhaps in the ideal sense most citizens in the world would like to see all countries give up their nuclear weapons, but in the world of real-politik, that would seem suicidal. The arms race fear seems hard to avoid.

For countries such as the US that wish to dissuade others from pursuing nuclear weapons development, a negotiated approach that is also backed by real commitments where powerful countries live up to their parts of nuclear non proliferation treaties would go a long way towards achieving a more agreeable and peaceful future. But to achieve this requires an almost colossal shift in foreign policy and requires such a level of friendship and trust between countries currently opposed to each other, that it is hard to see if this can ever happen.

Ironically then, the need for international “stability” will be used as an argument both for the reduction in nuclear weapons, and for their proliferation.

Best Regards,

Tauqeer Ahmed

"I believe no one should develop these awful weapons and I am against them 100%."

War Is Hell, Especially For Women

As the United Nations commemorates the 10th anniversary of a landmark Security Council resolution (1325) on the protection of women in war zones, a new study details the successes and failures of a long-drawn-out effort to battle gender-based violence and provide women a key role in male-dominated peacekeeping and peace-building operations.

'Women rarely wage war, but they too often suffer the worst of its consequences,' says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which released Wednesday its 108-page annual 'State of World Population' on the impact of conflicts on women worldwide.

In many of today's conflicts, women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it, she said.

Obaid said that experience shows that gender-based violence does not occur in a vacuum.

'It is usually a symptom of a larger problem, one of failed institutions, of dangerously skewed gender relations and entrenched equalities,' she said.

War and disaster, she argued, do not cause gender-based violence, 'but they often exacerbate it or allow it to strike with greater frequency.'

The UNFPA says its study is based, for the first time, on reports from the field from countries and territories that have experienced, or are experiencing, conflicts or disasters. These include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Liberia, Uganda, Timor-Leste, Haiti and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Among the many success stories since the adoption of the 1325 resolution in October 2000 are the national action plans by member states to protect and empower women in conflict and post-conflict situations. The Philippines wrote its own 1325 action plan; in Colombia, the UNFPA created a task force to mainstream gender issues and sensitise the armed forces and police to issues of gender-based violence. In Nepal, the U.N. agency is supporting the development of a national action plan to implement 1325, while in Rwanda it is supporting the national police force to effectively address gender-based violence.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, responding to a request from the Security Council, appointed in early 2010 Margot Wallstrom of Sweden as the U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Last March the United Nations also established an expert group, co-chaired by former Irish President Mary Robinson, to coordinate U.N. support for the implementation of resolution 1325.

Since hundreds of peacekeepers have been accused of rape and sexual violence in several countries, including Sudan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations has declared 'zero tolerance' on such crimes.

Still, the chair of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, said last year: 'From Congo, to Bosnia, to Darfur, peacekeepers have been unable to prevent the use of rape as a weapon of war and even genocide.' In several peacekeeping missions sexual violence has become so pervasive that the U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) keeps track of such crimes - on a quarterly basis.

During the third quarter of 2010, there were 19 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, of which five concerned minors.

The DPKO said Tuesday that during the first three quarters of 2010, 64 allegations were reported, compared to 81 allegations during the first nine months of 2009: a decrease of 21 percent. To counteract the incidence of sexual violence, the United Nations has also gradually increased the number of women peacekeepers.

'The proportion of women on the military and police side (in peacekeeping operations) has grown steadily since resolution 1325 was passed,' says the UNFPA report. At the end of 2006, there were 1,034 women in the uniformed ranks. By December 2007, the number had increased to 1,360. And a year later, there were 1,794. Still, says DPKO, there's 'only a fraction' of women in uniform compared to a total of more than 86,000 peacekeeping troops, 2,200 military observers, 13,200 police and 5,830 international civilians. Bangladesh and India, the two top contributors to peacekeeping operations, also had the largest contingents of women, including all-female Indian police contingents assigned to Liberia and an all-female Bangladeshi unit assigned to Haiti.

Pakistan and Nigeria are expected to follow suit with all- women units. Barbara Crossette, the lead author of the UNFPA report and a former U.N. bureau chief of the New York Times, told IPS that national governments are wary of taking seriously the suggestion to increase women's participation in peacekeeping forces and also peace negotiations. 'There is nothing that can be done about this. It is up to the governments of member states to take these recommendations seriously,' Crossette said. However, she pointed out, some countries have made gains - in South Africa, for example, the peacekeeping troops are largely women. Nigeria has the highest number of women in peacekeeping/police. Speaking as a journalist, Crossette said that any objective person would say it's not effective. But on the other hand, what's the alternative? she asked. The fear for many years, especially since peacekeeping started to grow, is that the United Nations actually had to beg for peacekeepers. 'As a result, they had to take what they got, but it's unfair certainly to say that all peacekeepers have been somehow involved/guilty of something,' Crossette added. She said it's also true to say that there have been some spectacularly effective peacekeeping contingents. 'I was in Cambodia in the mid-1980s where Bangladesh had a battalion there that was wonderful. The locals still think of them with great affection, they had a commander - it's the commander often - who said anyone who misbehaves here, off you go,' she recalled.

'Then the second question is, if they send them home, will they go on trial? Almost 100 percent no.'

Best Regards,

Tauqeer Ahmed

"This is just sad."

Arms Trade Means Big Business! It's True!

Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales are agreed. Most of these sales (something like 75%) are to developing countries.

The 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Russia, France, United Kingdom and China), together with Germany and Italy account for around 85% of the arms sold between 2002 and 2009.

Some of the arms sold go to regimes where human rights violations will occur. Corruption often accompanies arms sales due to the large sums of money involved.

Best Regards,

Tauqeer Ahmed

"It may not be pure political but it is an big issue."