AIDS - good news and bad news

The United Nation’s latest report on the prevalence of the AIDS virus across the world shows that the number of children newly infected last year is nearly a quarter fewer than the figure for 2009, though that still means there were 330,000 new infections.

The number of new infections among adults on the other hand has remained broadly stable for the last four years at about 2.5 million.   Across the world, 34 million people are thought to have the virus.

Over recent years, the number of victims receiving drugs that can keep the virus at bay has increased substantially, but the report reckons that 7 million people who need them still do not get them.   Sub-Saharan Africa remains the part of the world that is worst hit, though some countries there have managed to reduce the number of new cases.

In contrast, the number of new infections in Russia is growing, and there have been increases in AIDS-related deaths in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.  The UN has ambitious targets to reduce the spread of the virus and provide treatment for all who need it by 2015.

Child soldiers

Just been to see Johnny Mad Dog – the story of a group of boy soldiers in an unnamed African country. It’s an odd thing to say about such an enveloping, gut-wrenching film but in some ways the story seemed to me a little sanitised.

There was almost no examination of the way their kidnappers turned terrified children into terrifying killers. The boys also seemed to have something of a charmed life. We did not see them being wounded, maimed and killed in the numbers that surely would have been inevitable, nor, therefore, the effect this would have on their comrades. Nor did we see the fate of those who are captured. Nonetheless it is an extremely powerful film on an important subject.

The Brookings Institute have estimated that child soldiers fight in about three quarters of all the world’s wars, while in 2007, Human Rights Watch put their number at up to 300,000.

Among those currently on trial who are alleged to have used child soldiers are former Liberian president Charles Taylor (see my blog of July 15) and Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga (see my blogs of Jan 29 and March 23). While in February, three rebel commanders in Sierra Leone were convicted of forcing children to become soldiers. (see my blog of March 4)

Child survivors

It has now been revealed that the sole survivor of Tuesday’s air crash off the Comoros islands in the Indian Ocean was only 12 years old. Baya Bakari had been travelling with her mother who was among the 152 people killed.

Twenty-four years ago, in the world’s worst disaster involving a single aircraft, two children were among just four people who survived out of 524 on board. When rescuers reached the JAL jumbo which had hit a mountain ridge in Japan, they found two girls aged eight and 12, along with two women aged 25 and 34.

Children have been the only people left alive in a number of other air disasters. A three year old boy was the sole survivor of an air crash in Sudan in 2003 that killed 116. A nine year old girl alone escaped from a flight that blew up over Colombia in 1995, while two years later a one year old Thai boy was the lone survivor from an airliner that came down near Phnom Penh airport in Cambodia. According to one analyst, there have been 13 air accidents since 1970 where only one person survived, and in six cases that sole survivor was a child.

So is it just coincidence, or do children have a better chance of coming out alive? There are a number of theories. One is that aircraft seats offer better protection to smaller bodies – adults are more likely to be hit on the head or legs, and killed or injured, by flying debris. In addition, bones grow more brittle as we get older, and some believe that the human body reaches its maximum vigour at about the age of 11. There is also a suggestion that children may be better able to survive in water – a factor that may have helped Baya Bakari.

Gaza - return to oblivion

So the massacre in Gaza is over and the world can forget about the Palestinians until the next one begins. After a brief flurry of sympathy and understanding for the people inhabiting the world’s biggest open prison, normal service is rapidly being resumed. The BBC and Sky are refusing to broadcast an appeal to help those Palestinians made destitute, homeless, disabled, hungry and thirsty by the Israelis. Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has made it clear that no Israeli war criminals will be prosecuted whatever the circumstances. But what do you expect from a man who killed hundreds of Palestinian children to improve his election prospects ?

Because of Israeli censorship, it’s impossible to be certain about how many Palestinians were killed, and the figure is likely to rise as more and more bodies are pulled from the rubble. However, it seems that at least 1300 Palestinians have been killed, nearly a third of them children. It is almost certain that the majority of the people Israel killed were civilians and not members of the Palestinian resistance.

The Israelis have injured at least 5,000 more and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings – houses, universities, factories, schools, mosques, orchards etc. 50,000 Gazans have been made homeless, and 400,000 have no water. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, including ten soldiers. Literally 99% of the casualties have been inflicted by the Israelis, so what is Labour’s analysis of the problem? We have to stop Hamas getting weapons! Not a dicky bird from Labour, or the rest of the “free world” on stopping the flow of arms to Israel.

Indeed, Gordon Brown has even offered to prostitute the Royal Navy to the service of the Israelis as a jailer for the Palestinians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/18/israel-gaza-ceasefire-fragile

If you want to defy the BBC and Sky and donate to the Gaza appeal, this is the link.
https://www.donate.bt.com/bt_form_gaza.html

But there is little point in just rebuilding Gaza again so the Israelis can destroy it again. Reconstruction this time needs to be allied to political and military action to ensure Israel can never again massacre Gazans and destroy their homes.

Israel breaks the ceasefire + a stormy anniversary

Just imagine if Hamas had fired off a rocket and injured an Israeli, what a song and dance there would have been from the British media and from Labour ministers. Well, on Friday, the Israelis shot another two Palestinian children and at least another three Palestinian adults and there was barely a peep. The adults do not even appear to have been part of the Palestinian resistance. Some of the victims were in a fishing boat which, according to the Israelis, had “strayed off course.” The Israeli gunboat also hit a number of other boats and a house on the shore.

And where is the Silent President? Mr Obama excused his uncharacteristic lack of loquacity during the massacre in Gaza on the grounds that he was not yet in office. But, I seem to remember he assured us, he would have much to say once he was. Well, we’re still waiting Mr President, and time is running out.

On this day.....250 years ago, of course, Robbie Burns was born. More significant for the disaster history blog, though, is that on January 25, 1990, the “Burns’ Day” storm hit southern England. Gusts of 87 miles an hour were recorded in London, and altogether, 47 people were killed, while the actor Gordon Kaye, star of ‘Allo, ‘Allo was seriously injured. The winds were less strong than in the “Great Storm” of just over two years before, but the death toll was much higher because this time the winds came during the day when there were more people out and about.

See The Disastrous History of London for the full story.