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CHANGE
TOPICAL INDEX timing page
Development
HEALTH
New Approach to Rural Health Care Delivery 56secs. 5 Self-help, international
grants and government support
spell good health care delivery in Africa.
New Drug May End Death From Malarial Infection 51secs. 4 Research
is under way to make malarial infections
mild and not fatal.
Africa's Aids Scourge 40secs. 13 AIDS continues to rob hundreds
of thousands
of African children of their right to life
NUTRITION
Food and Agricultural Organisation Warns of Mal-nutrition 1min. 58secs. 7
Over fishing threatens developing countries with malnutrition.
United Nations Calls for Food Aid to Angola 2mins. 10secs. 8 Hundreds
of thousands of Angolans face malnutrition
unless the world donates massive food aid soon.
Spirulina: The Wonder Alga 2mins. 39secs. 11 The multipurpose
crop, families should know about.
SCIENCE
Researchers Study Lightning Patterns 2mins. 36secs. 9 More facts emerge
about lightning.
LIVING
Human Suffering Index 27secs. 14 Angola: A nation that is suffering
from
25 years of incessant civil war.
Women in Bangladesh Lobby for Equality with Men 2mins. 46secs. 12
Bangladeshi women are searching for a favourable
inheritance law.
ECONOMY
Unicef Urges Creditor Nations to Cancel Africa's Debts 1min. 43secs. 11
UNICEF -The United Nations Children's Fund says that
Africa's debt burden deprives women and
children of their basic rights.
A Global Movement for Debt Cancellation 26secs. 14 Organising
for freedom from debt peonage. 1
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Development Quotation 33secs. 9 The major hurdle to development
in Africa.
Economic Commission for Africa Plans for Development 1min. 18secs. 7
Lower fertility rate and slower population growth
may hasten sustainable development in Africa.
Environment
CLIMATE
Global Warming: The Indian Heat Wave. 27secs. 13 India may experience
another season
of killer heat wave this year.
Climate Change: Real or Exaggerated? 36secs. 6 Climate Change
may have claimed its first big casualties.
CONSERVATION
Conservation Quotation 18secs. 8 People's attitude towards conservation.
Waiting for the Disaster to Happen 30secs. 14 A World Heritage site
in the way of looming disaster.
FORESTS
Update on Forest Certification 17secs. 13 The latest report on forest
certification worldwide.
Builders and Woodworkers Support Certification 54secs. 4 The latest
support for forest certification comes from
an international union of wood workers.
POLLUTION
Habitual Polluters 21secs. 14 Oil tankers' crews have bad habits.
World Bank Helps Four African Countries Fight Oil Pollution 56secs. 6
Four Indian Ocean countries receive help
to combat pollution of sensitive waterways
Cote d'Ivoire Demonstrates Readiness for Oil Disasters 1min. 29secs.
6 Following a surprising fire at an oil tank farm, Cote d'Ivoire reassures
citizens of readiness for environmental disasters.
WETLANDS
Campaign Launched to Save Freshwater Resources 59secs. 5 A plan announced
to save global water resources.
Cote d'Ivoire Solves Water Hyacinths Problem 55secs. 4 A 20 year
war against water weeds finally pays off. 2
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WILDLIFE
Which Animal has the Most Tribes? 36secs. 13 This animal has more
species than all other
animals combined.
POLICY
Workshop Aims to Prevent Conflict Over Natural Resource 57secs. 5 Seven
southern African countries meet over potential environmental conflicts.
Children's Section
Why the Lion Does Not Eat Fruit 2mins. 30secs. 10 Small animals must
be smart to protect their
sources of food in the wild.
How do Butterflies Eat? 22secs. 10 Curled mouths make butterflies
suitable for
certain types of food.
What is the Biggest Tree in the World? 1min. 24secs. 11 Discover
the tree that weighs more than
1,000 full grown African elephants combined.
Day of the African Child 1min. 7secs. 10 The African child's day
reminds the world
that poverty is a crime against children.
Glossary 15
Acronyms 15 3
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News New Drug May End Death From Malarial Infection 51secs.
An end to malaria, the age-long killer disease, is in sight. New, ongoing
research in the United Kingdom is about to produce a drug that would render
the symptoms of malaria relatively mild and make them unlikely to
kill.
Although research into the drug is at an early stage, there are indications
that it would be administered as a vaccine to children.
Malaria kills three million people yearly, mostly African children. The research
builds on available evidence that
only limited exposure to malarial infection in childhood is needed to acquire
immunity. The vaccine is, therefore, not designed to prevent infection. But
it will make the infection unlikely to kill its victim.
London Press Service
Cote d'Ivoire Solves Water Hyacinths Problem 55secs.
After 20 years of trying, Cote d'Ivoire has finally won the battle against
rapidly multiplying water plants that overtook fishponds and threatened marine
life and local economic activities. The plants include water hya-cinths,
salads and water ferns.
A biological control method introduced in 1997 finally won the war for Cote
d'Ivoire. In a joint project with
the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, funded by the World Wide Fund
for Nature, WWF, Cote d'Ivoire bred and introduced insects into ponds invaded
by the water plants. These insects, whose
names are undisclosed, fed on the plants and destroyed them.
Insect breeding stations were set up at four separate locations throughout the
country for a co-ordinated attack
against the water plants. Africa News On Line
Builders and Woodworkers Support Certification 54secs. Support for
well-managed forests [forest certification] has come from the International
Federation of Building
and Wood Workers [IFBWW]. This follows an agreement in June with WWF -World
Wide Fund for Nature,
to promote forest conservation and eco-labelling guidelines for identifying
products that come from well-managed forests.
"Forest workers and their labour organisations have a vested interest in sustainable
forestry," said IFBWW General Secretary, Ulf Asp, "if there are no forests there
are no jobs."
Over 10 million workers in 121 countries belong to IFBWW. The union will bring
its skills and intimate knowledge of the forests to benefit conservation.
WWF aims to place 200 million hectares of forest under sustainable management
by the year 2005. WWF 4
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New Approach to Rural Health Care Delivery 56secs. Community
health care funded by grants and the health ministry appears to be the model
for health care
delivery in Africa. A programme in Ghana has attracted the attention of experts.
The Navrongo Community Health and Family Planning Project [CHFP] was started
in northeastern Ghana in 1993 as a pilot project to design appropriate community-based
health and family planning services. The
project was asked to address the major difficulties facing health care delivery
in Ghana's rural areas. These include high cost, long distance, poor quality
services, inefficiency and lack of community involvement. Experts
believe that CHFP has succeeded in doing so. Health authorities from other countries
have been visiting the project to learn from it.
The Navrongo project serves a population of 139,000 people. It is funded by
the U. S. Agency for Interna-tional Development -USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation,
the Health Ministry and Population Council.
Newslink Africa
Workshop Aims to Prevent Conflict Over Natural Resource 57secs. Awareness
of international conflicts that could arise from dwindling natural resources
has been given a boost in
southern Africa, following a workshop on resource sharing last June in Mozambique
by the Finnish NGO,
KUTI.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mozambican Minister for Environmental Co-operation
warned of the possibility of conflicts in southern Africa over resource use.
"National policies on management and rational use of water resources should
be co-ordinated among benefi-ciary countries," he said.
Most rivers in Africa cross international boundaries, and are often dammed upstream.
The workshop aimed at preventing future conflicts over natural resources use
and management in Africa, was organised in collaboration with the Eduard Mondlane
Foundation. It drew participants from Angola, Botswana,
Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Finland. PANA
Campaign Launched to Save Freshwater Resources 59secs.
A campaign to conserve global freshwater resources was launched by WWF -the
World Wide Fund for Nature at the 7 th Ramsar Conference of Contracting Parties
in Costa Rica -a meeting of nations legally agreed
to protect freshwater resources in their domain.
The Living Waters Campaign is aimed at averting the global water shortage and
conserving life forms of rivers,
lakes, springs, marshes and other wetlands.
"[ This] is part of our contribution to a larger goal of conservation and
sustainable use of natural resources," said Claude Martin, WWF International
Director General 5
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The plan was announced on May 13, at the convention that ran from May
10 -18. WWF also announced funding for the campaign, taking advantage of prolonged
debates over budget constraints at the Ramsar con-vention.
WWF
Climate Change: Real or Exaggerated? 36secs. The disappearance of
20 frog species in Costa Rica has been attributed to climate change. The phenomenon,
described as "mysterious," was recently published in the journal Science.
It was attributed to drier conditions
in the forest of Monteverde in Costa Rica's highlands. This was intensified
by last year's El Nino weather pattern.
An official of U. S. based Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force, Michael
Lannoo, has described the incident as the first animal decline attributable
to modern climate change.
WWF
World Bank Helps Four African Countries Fight Oil Pollution 56secs. Four
African countries on the Indian Ocean, seeking to address oil pollution of their
waterways, have received
assistance from the World Bank. The bank recently offered to finance a USD5
million regional programme
against the dumping of hydrocarbons.
This information came in the wake of a workshop that opened in the Mauritian
town of Quatre-Bornes, June 21, called to discuss the project which involves
Mauritius, Comoros, Madagascar and Seychelles.
According to reports, the project is the first of its kind funded by the Global
Environment Fund, GEF, an affiliate of the World Bank.
The workshop discussed three international conventions that deal with compensations
for oil spills. One-third of the 60 million barrels of oil produced daily is
carried through the Indian Ocean.
PANA
Features Cote d'Ivoire Demonstrates Readiness for Oil Disasters
1min. 29secs.
Hundreds of Ivorians, with several journalist among them, watched June 7 th
as the Ports Authority of Ivory Coast demonstrated its readiness to contain
oil spillage on the Lagoon in its capital city, Abidjan.
The demonstration followed a recent fire at a petrol tank farm in Abidjan
which caught the Ivorian ports
authority completely off-guard. The authorities decided on a demonstration of
their readiness in order to reassure residents of Abidjan who were shaken by
the incident.
The exercise was co-ordinated by the Ivorian Anti-Pollution Centre to simulate
fighting a 30,000 tonne oil spillage in the Lagoon. Pollumar, an independent
firm specialised in the control of marine pollution was involved
in the exercise. The exercise involved five teams of firemen co-ordinated to
achieve specific objectives in the event of an 6
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environmental disaster of such magnitude. The objectives included the
evacuation of all tourists from beaches, bays and factories; the prevention
of a fire out break; contain and siphon off the oil spill; collect the oil at
berth,
clean up the coast and provide first aid to victims.
Thirty-seven firemen, 600,000 litres of liquid foam and three emulsifier motors
were assembled for the exer-cise.
Africa News On Line
Economic Commission for Africa Plans for Development 1min. 18secs.
A unit within the Economic Commission of Africa [ECA] has been charged with
the responsibility to speed up attainment of sustainable development in the
economies of African countries by encouraging lower population
growth rates. The unit, known as the Food Security and Sustainable Development
Division [FSSDD] would work with governments to "harmonise population growth
with the capacity of the land area to produce sustain-able
amounts of food."
Successes achieved in individual countries are documented, and the methods applied
would be adapted pro-gressively throughout the continent.
Emphasis is being laid on reducing fertility rate in Africa to about 2 percent,
so that families would have about
2 children -down from between 5 and 7 children now. There are indications that
fertility rate has started dropping in some countries. Recent reports by ECA
also indicate that Africans are beginning to live longer as
their living standards improve.
The ECA plans to intensify its awareness and lobbying programmes, as well as
capacity building to achieve
sustainable development in Africa. Economic Commission of Africa
Food and Agricultural Organisation Warns of Mal-nutrition 1min. 58secs.
More than one-sixth of the people of the world is faced with malnutrition,
as fishing trawlers in the world's
oceans catch more fish each year than are replenished. More than 110 million
tonnes of fish are caught yearly.
But the maximum sustainable annual yield of the oceans is between 82 and 100
million tonnes.
Developing countries are most vulnerable to this threat of malnutrition. Fish
is the only source of protein for more than 950 millions of their people. However,
new information from the Food and Agricultural Organisation
of the United Nations [FAO] shows that developing countries are participating
increasingly in the international
trade in fish and fishery products.
"While the exports earn them valuable foreign exchange, the diversion of fish
and fish products from local communities and developing regions can deprive
needy people, including children, of a traditionally cheap, but
highly nutritious food," the FAO noted.
The pressure on the oceans is great because most of the fish eating come from
oceans. Very little come from rivers and other freshwater sources. Besides,
people eat more fish than any other type of animal protein. 7
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Recent figures released by the FAO show that nearly 30 million poor
people derive their income from fishing and several developing countries depend
mainly on fish as their protein source.
Environmental organisations have devised various strategies for averting the
imminent protein crisis. The strat-egies urge governments to remove subsidies
to fishing firms. They also called for the establishment of no-fishing
zones where fisheries will be protected as an insurance against over-fishing
elsewhere. FAO
United Nations Calls for Food Aid to Angola 2mins. 10secs. The United
Nations recently called for international emergency food assistance worth 180,000
tonnes of
cereals to be sent to Angola to avert imminent, large-scale malnutrition in
the war-torn nation.
According to a UN report in June, hundreds of thousands of Angolans face an
increased risk of malnutrition
due to reduced access to food, poor health and inadequate sanitation. The report
issued jointly by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations,
FAO, and the World Food Programme, WFP, said that
180,000 tonnes of cereals will be needed over the next 10 months to avert
the imminent crisis. 56,000 tonnes have been pledged, leaving a shortfall of
124,000 tonnes.
Most at risk are about 3 million people. Two million people are internally
displaced, having fled their homes and farms for refuge in other provincial
capitals and municipalities. Another one million, severely affected by
the war, cannot continue normal farming practices.
"Hostilities have been experienced in virtually all provinces, but the areas
worst affected have been the main
maize growing central provinces," the report added.
An FAO/ WFP Crop and Food Supply Mission to the country warns that food shortages
in these areas will worsen in the coming months.
The conflict in Angola dates back to 1975 after the socialist Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola [MPLA] formed the first post independence government.
The National Union for the Total Independence of
Angola [UNITA] supported by apartheid South Africa and Western powers opposed
the MPLA government. A peace agreement was signed in 1994. Both the parties
have reportedly failed to implement its terms. Inse-curity
due to the civil war has reduced land available for farming, and prevented resumption
of normal agricul-tural
practices, the report said. IPS
Special Features Conservation Quotation 18secs.
"Modern man, often corralled in narrow corridor streets or conditioned to
fitting into streams of noisy, smelly vehicles cannot hope, without some serious
preparation and training, to be other than a misfit and a blot on the
wilderness scene…" Max Nicholson, Founder Trustee WWF-UK 8
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Researchers Study Lightning Patterns 2mins. 36secs. Nearly 4,000
people were killed, and another 10,000 injured by lightning between 1959 and
1994! Lightning
is that sudden streak of blinding light that strikes from the sky, during thunderstorms
in the rainy season. This
frightening weather condition also causes about USD35 million worth of damage
annually.
People have tried for several centuries to understand lightning and harness
its power. In the process man discovered electricity. Recently, scientists met
at a conference in Guntersville, Alabama, to present new dis-coveries
of global lightning patterns, with a view to increasing their understanding
of how, where, when and
why lightning strikes. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration
-NASA -sponsored the meeting.
Information about global lightning patterns garnered from instruments that
provide a view of lightning from above the cloud tops, were the highlight of
the meeting.
"It looks like lightning is sensitive to changing weather patterns that evolve
from year to year," said Hugh Christian of Global Hydrology and Climate Centre
in Huntsville Alabama.
According to their findings, lightning is more common in storms over land than
over oceans. In fact, 98% of all
lightning occur over land. They occur more in the afternoons and vary from one
season to the next. They also found a greater variation in lightning patterns
over land. There is very little variation over the sea.
"We believe that this is due to the land absorbing heat [and releasing it
more rapidly into the atmosphere]. On the other hand, water can store a lot
more heat, [but] releases it more slowly," said Christian.
The scientists also reported that lightning appears to follow the sun. Lightning
moves progressively north of the equator as summer progresses in northern, temperate,
region. A similar pattern was observed in the tropical,
southern region; but lightning was less pronounced because there isn't much
land outside the tropics.
Scientists are analysing data that show that changing weather patterns affect
lightning patterns. It is hoped, therefore, that lightning patterns may be one
way of measuring the earth's weather trends.
Environmental News Network
Development Quotations 33secs.
"In the transition from poor to better stewardship of the environment, all
human endeavours which are not carried out in harmony with nature are not sustainable
by definition over the long run. Many African nations
today are faced with serious environmental problems which affect overall socio-economic
development. The most important issues are deforestation, land [soil] degradation,
water resource degradation, irrational use of
land and water resources and losses of biological diversity." Economic Community
of Africa 9
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Children's Section Day of the African Child 1min. 7secs.
This year's Day of the African Child commemorated world wide last month
called attention to the violence that poverty has unleashed against African
women and children. The Day, June 16, was set aside in 1976 following
the brutal massacre of school children in apartheid South Africa. The children
had risen to demonstrate against
government's injustice in Soweto -the country's largest black township, and
the brutal political system that colonised and oppressed Africans.
Four years after apartheid was dismantled, Africans continue to observe the
day to encourage governments to renew their pledges to children, uphold their
rights and allocate resources for their welfare. The theme for this
year, "Violence against children and the threat of HIV/ AIDS Pandemic" calls
attention to the effects of poverty on women and children as a result of the
tough economic reforms Africa has been put through by
creditor nations. UNICEF/ IPS
Why the Lion Does Not Eat Fruit 2mins. 30secs. Bwawa, the Jackal, one
day discovered the delicious fruit of the udara tree. But as he sat there
enjoying his
meal, he heard Lion roaring in the distance. He thought to himself "Lion sounds
hungry. I hope he doesn't come this way and find all my lovely fruit." And he
began to worry, since Lion, as everyone knows, has a huge
appetite and being the King of Beasts, is entitled to steal anyone's meal.
Lion did come near, but crafty Bwawa had thought up a trick to stop Lion from
eating his udara fruit. As soon as Lion was near enough, Bwawa began
to eat the fruit as fast as he could, making sure that Lion was watching
this display of greed. Suddenly, Bwawa collapsed in a heap on the ground, writhing
and groaning, and then he lay still as if dead. Lion, of course, thought that
the fruit must be poisonous, so he went on his way, and soon
was out of sight. Now Bwawa, getting up, remembered where he had seen the skeleton
of another jackal lying nearby. So he fetched it and placed it under the udara
tree on the spot where he had pretended to die. Well
satisfied with his clever trick, he went home.
A few weeks later, Lion passed by and saw the udara tree laden with juicy fruit.
He walked over to the tree,
but stopped when he saw the pitiful remains of a jackal. Its bones had been
scattered by scavengers and Lion remembered seeing Bwawa eating the fruit of
the udara tree. He vowed to himself never to touch fruit again.
Since that day, Lion has never eaten the fruit of the udara tree, or indeed
of any other tree. This made the jackal and all the other small animals of the
bush, very happy. Now they could eat as much fruit as they wanted
without having to share it with the lion's enormous appetite. When Hippo
Was Hairy
How do Butterflies Eat? 22secs. Butterflies suck nectar from inside
flowers. This is their food. They have a strange mouth like a long drinking
straw, which curls up underneath the head. If you look carefully and quietly
at a butterfly you will see it.
Butterflies are beautiful insects with large colourful wings. Chongololo
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What is the Biggest Tree in the World? 1min. 24secs. The biggest
tree in the world is also the most massive living thing in the world. It is
a giant sequoia tree called
'General Sherman' and it grows in North America [U. S. A. and Canada]. It is
83 metres tall and its trunk measures 24 metres around. You can imagine how
large it is if you get 16 school children to hold hands in a big
circle. That circle is how large it is. Can you believe it?
If you want to see what it looks like on top of the tree, you will have to stand
on the thirty-first floor of a sky-scrapper
built right next to it. Its weight is thought to be about 6,100 tonnes. This
is the same as the combined weight of 1,000 full grown African elephants or
of about 110,000 school children.
If General Sherman were cut down, it would make 5,000,000,000 [five billion]
match sticks! However, would you believe that General Sherman is not the tallest
tree in the world? No, it isn't. Another American
sequoia tree is taller than General Sherman. It is over 110 metres long. Chongololo
Women's Issues Unicef Urges Creditor Nations to Cancel Africa's
Debts 1min. 43secs.
Mrs. Parole Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's
Fund, has called on the group of eight most industrialised nations [G8] to review
the debt burden of African countries. She said that the burden
denies African women and children their basic rights.
"It is no longer tolerable, on the eve of the new millennium that hundreds of
millions of people be held in debt bondage to the world's rich countries," Mrs.
Bellamy said, speaking in commemoration of the Day of the
African Child last month.
Sub-Sahara Africa owes more than USD200 billion to governments and institutions
of many G8 countries namely, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia and the United States of America. The inter-national
Heavily Indebted Poor Country [HIP] initiative launched in 1996 to provide relief
to 41 poorest countries including Nigeria failed, Mrs. Bellamy said.
The result is bad for Africa. Child mortality is one-third higher than other
regions of the world; six times more money is spent servicing debts than in
educating the region's 300 million children; one in three children is not
immunised; half the population is illiterate; and one in six working children
world wide is African.
"No country has ever reached its development goals when the majority of its
people are suffering the deep
poverty facing hundreds of millions in the world today," said Bellamy. IPS
Spirulina: The Wonder Alga 2mins. 39secs. The growth of algae in ponds,
rivers, streams or lakes may be indicators of pollution and are often destroyed.
But in many parts of the world, one species of algae called spirulina, grown
in one's backyard, is a welcome sight to malnourished people. 11
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It can be cooked fresh and eaten as meat, or dried and used as a food
additive in soups, porridge or drinks. Dried spirulina becomes powdery and smells
like dried fish. But it loses the smell when added to food. It also
tends to change the colour of food to green.
Spirulina is a green algae that is grown and eaten world wide as a source of
first quality protein. According to
a recent publication of Intermediate Technology, spirulina is the richest
source of protein known to man. Almost every bit of it is protein and it contains
all the essential amino acids. It is also rich in vitamins and iron
including vitamins A, B12, and E, and has proven medicinal values, making
it effective in fighting infections, skin diseases, anaemia, and diseases of
the heart and nervous system.
The best news for mothers, however, is that its nutritional benefits have
been proven in feeding programmes for malnourished children in India and Africa.
And there are spirulina farms in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Benin Republic, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic.
Spirulina is not a new food source. It has been around for centuries and has
been used by various civilisations
in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Although scientists discovered it only in
1939, it was already used in several countries including Chad, India, China,
Japan and Mexico.
Spirulina can be grown domestically in a small water tight, salty pond of
about 10 square metres wide and 20 centimetres deep. There are simple specifications
for steering the pond periodically, feeding the culture, main-taining
an optimum temperature range, and keeping out insects and rain while allowing
access to the sun. For for more information, write to the Editor, CHANGE Radio,
P. O. Box 56283, Falomo, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria.
Intermediate Technology
Women in Bangladesh Lobby for Equality with Men 2mins. 46secs.
Bangladeshi women's rights activists are lobbying their government hard
for a legal system similar to Nigeria's with regard to inheritance rights. But
their government is responding cautiously, careful not to offend the faith of
the majority Muslims and the minority Hindu population.
Women's groups are demanding equal rights to property and a uniform family code
to give women equal
access to property, marriage, divorce and guardianship of children.
Bangladesh still upholds the religious inheritance law that gives a daughter
only half the share of property to which the son is entitled, or none at all.
But prominent lawyer Salma Khan, chairperson of the United Nations Convention
on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW] Committee,
believes that making inheritance a subject of
civil courts can change the practice in favour of women. She cited the example
of Nigeria, Egypt and Tunisia as nations where civil courts guarantee women
equality with men in matters of inheritance.
The activists trace other forms of gender discrimination in Bangladesh to
religion, charging that discrimination is ingrained in the society.
For example, mullahs call out blessings in the mosques when a son is born, while
families mourn the birth of a daughter. Her suffering continues throughout her
life, thereafter. Research shows that a woman farm labourer 12
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earns less than half of her male counterpart. And women work 21 hours
more than men do weekly, according to research by the Bangladesh Institute of
Development Studies, BIDS.
The United Nations Children's Fund has also found that Bangladeshi boys who
drop out of school spend only 12 minutes a day doing housework while girls out
of school do five hours of housework daily.
The women activists believe that it is possible to reform Bangladeshi law without
offending the people's reli-gious awareness.
Last month, the country's Law Minister Abdul Matin Khasru agreed, saying that
his government is committed
to affirmative action for women.
"But it is not possible for a democratic government to take a step that might
hurt the religious faith of the people," he added.
Mr. Khasru said that first people have to be prepared to accept change before
a decision is taken. IPS
Useful Quickfacts Which Animal has the Most Tribes? 36secs.
Did you know that there are over one million different insect species in the
world? That is more than all the
other species of animals put together. Some insects can do remarkable things.
For example, a flea can jump
200 times the length of its own body. A mosquito can drink its own body weight
in blood at one meal. There is even a species of fly in California, United States
of America, which lives and breeds in petroleum.
Chongololo
Africa's Aids Scourge 40secs.
About 80 percent of hospital beds in Africa are occupied by cases of the
acquired immune deficiency syn-drome [AIDS]. This is according to recent reports
by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, painting
a gloomy picture of the ravages of AIDS in Africa.
The situation is worse in East Africa. In Kenya alone, more than 600,000 children
have been orphaned by the
pandemic of which 240,000 have died already. The number will increase by the
end of this year, given the projection of 200,000 more adult deaths.
UNICEF/ IPS
Update on Forest Certification 17secs. More than 16 million hectares
of forests world-wide have now been certified so far by the Forest Stewardship
Council, to be managed in ways that are economically viable, socially beneficial
and environmentally appropri-ate.
WWF
Global Warming: The Indian Heat Wave. 27secs.
Last year more than 1,300 people lost their lives in parts of India due
to a severe heat wave that swept through the country. Meteorologists are recording
a similar trend this year as air temperature builds up again. Climate 13
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experts have warned that these are early manifestations of global warming,
but the Indian government plays down the phenomenon.
Down to Earth
Human Suffering Index 27secs. The southern African nation of Angola
ranks among the nations that place lowest on the human development
index. More than one third of its almost nine million people are either internally
displaced or are severely affected by its civil war of 25 years. More than half
of the population do not know any other form of existence
besides war! IPS
Habitual Polluters 21secs. Oil tanker crews loading up supplies at
the Mediterranean Sea have formed a habit of cleaning their ship holds
at sea. Research shows that they dump between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of crude
oil annually into the
Mediterranean Sea, near the Atlantic coast of West Africa. WWF
A Global Movement for Debt Cancellation 26secs. Since 1996 several
movements have emerged to advocate debt cancellation for poor nations by the
year
2000. Jubilee 2000 coalition made up of religious institutions, non-governmental
organisations, labour unions, humanitarian organisations and personalities is
the most popular. African members of the coalition include
Nelson Madela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana and
Kenyan Environmentalist Wangari Maathai.
IPS
Waiting for the Disaster to Happen 30secs. More than 500 million tonnes
of crude oil bound for Europe, Asia and North America are carried daily through
the African countries located on the Indian Ocean. This traffic accounts for
over 5,000 trips of oil tankers per year in the waters near Comoros and Madagascar
and through the region's Aldabra islands, a very fragile
marine ecosystem that has been declared a World Heritage site. PANA
14
14 Page 15
Radio
Vol 11 No. 8 July 1999
15
CHANGE
Glossary SEQUOIA: A genius of conifers, the Californian big tree
or mammoth tree and the red wood.
Acronyms AIDS: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
BIDS: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
CEDAW: Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
CHFP: Community Health and Family Planning Project.
ECA: Economic Commission of Africa.
FAO: Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.
FSSDD: Food Security and Sustainable Development Division.
G8: Group of eight most industrialised nations.
GEF: Global Environment Fund.
HIP: Heavily Indebted Poor Country initiative.
IFBWW: International Federation of Building and Wood Workers.
MPLA: Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
UNDP: United Nations Development Programme.
UNICEF: The United Nations Children's Fund.
UNITA: National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.
USAID: U. S. Agency for International Development.
USD: United States Dollar.
WFP: World Food Programme.
WWF: World Wide Fund for Nature. 15
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