Obama said on World AIDS Day and Zim.situation

Some news and updates:

This is what Barack Obama said on World AIDS Day, 2006, after a visit to South Africa:
“We know how to save people’s lives. We know the medicine is out there and we know that wealthy countries can afford to do more.That’s why it was so frustrating for me to go to South Africa, and see the pain, and see the suffering, and then hear that the country’s Minister of Health had promoted the use of beet root, sweet potato, and lemon juice as the best way to cure HIV.Thankfully, the South African government eventually repudiated this, but it’s impossible to overestimate how important it is for political leaders like this to set a good example for their people.We should never forget that God granted us the power to reason so that we would do His work here on Earth - so that we would use science to cure disease, and heal the sick, and save lives. And one of the miracles to come out of the AIDS pandemic is that scientists have discovered medicine that can give people with HIV a new chance at life.We are called to give them that chance. We have made progress - in South Africa, treatment provided to pregnant women has drastically reduced the incidents of infants born with the infection.” http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/hartley/2008/11/07/what-obama-said-about-mbeki-and-aids/#comments

Zimbabwe’s failed Robert Mugabe state is entering its final days and they are going to be bitter, violent and deadly.Yesterday all water supplies were switched off to Harare in the throes of a killer cholera epidemic. People are dying in the streets and the state has neither the resources nor the will to intervene. External interventions to try and assist with the health epidemic are being snubbed by Mugabe, who has blocked the elders (Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Graca Machel) from entering the country to bring aid to the dying.In Harare, the military is rioting, attacking money-traders as their pay cheques can no longer be processed. Commercial businesses are under attack by soldiers. The police are being beaten when they try to intervene. Vandalism is now state-sponsored.The country’s power-sharing deal has all but collapsed under the weight of Mugabe’s monumental ego. Despite having no inclination to assist his desperate people, he insists on holding onto state power.This has, in turn, led to political action by his neighbours. Botswana has offered opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai the option of being a leader in exile from its soil. It is considering closing its borders. South Africa is withholding aid.Through all of this, the world remains strangely mute and apparently incapable of intervention.Will we look back at this moment as the moment we missed our last chance to stop a terrible genocide? http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/hartley/2008/12/02/zimbabwe-doomsday-unfolding-as-the-world-does-nothing/

UNICEF takes emergency action amid Zimbabwe cholera outbreak. In its latest toll, the Geneva-based WHO said that 483 people were now known to have died from the water-borne disease.http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=081202175652.anrklz3a.php

Vi var akkurat ferdig med et ukes Kicking AIDS Out kurs i gaar med instruktoerer fra Zambia, Namibia og Zimbabwe i hovedstaden, Harare. Kurset gikk meget bra med 28 deltakere fra hele landet. Alle jobber for og representerer idrettsforbundet i Zimbabwe. Gode tilbakemeldinger har det vaert, men nok vanskelig aa vaere helt aapen og aerlig med situasjonen ogsaa. Det er mistanke om at 'Mugabe' skal ha kontroll paa alt som skjer (tel., e-mail) ut av landet, men ikke inn..Dette er kun spekulasjoner, men..Haaper bare det aapnes opp for dialog med omverden, slik at bistand kan komme. Naa er det kritisk! Flere fra Zimbabwe flytter og tar turen til South Africa (som de har gjort i lang tid naa). Flere (som jeg har blitt kjent med opp gjennom aarene) kontakter meg da de har kommet til eks. Joburg Sverre kan du hjelpe meg - 'Jeg trenger en jobb'..