JOHANNESBURG - Seasonal rains could worsen a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe that has already killed more than 1,600 people, a senior international Red Cross official said on Friday. The outbreak has heightened the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe and the opposition are deadlocked over a power-sharing deal and the veteran leader is resisting Western calls to step down.
The World Health Organisation said this week that cholera had killed 1,608 people of 30,365 reported cases and the infection rate showed no signs of slowing. The disease has spread because of the collapse of health and sanitation systems.
Francoise Le Goff, head of southern African operations of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC), said the cholera risk was growing now Zimbabwe was entering the rainy season. "We are just preparing for the worst," said Le Goff, who had just returned from a trip to Zimbabwe, adding that if the rains continue, the epidemic could last until March or April.
"The worst could be heavy rains causing not only this cholera to spread, but floods," said Le Goff. "It means that the water level will cover the fields, that the crops are destroyed, that people cannot travel or we cannot have access to the area."
The cholera crisis could multiply to 60,000 cases and over 3,000 dead in the next three months, said Le Goff, citing WHO estimates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#4
It's more like contamination of public water supplies by sewer equipment that hasn't been maintained in years. Not like they're drinking out of toilets, all the water is bad.
BNP will play a constructive role as the opposition in parliament if the treasury bench conducts itself properly, the party's Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain said yesterday. "We got trounced."
"What'd we do last time we got trounced?"
"Spent a few years rioting until they got trounced."
"We could do that, I guess."
"Or we could take part in the government."
"Naw. That'd never work."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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Though BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has described the December 29 election as 'stage-managed', her colleagues put the polls drubbing down to wrong strategies and waning organisational strength.
"Well, that didn't work."
"What'll we do now?"
"We could do the same thing again."
"I think we should do something different."
The party policymakers are now divided over what course of action they should take. While some favour accepting the results and playing a positive role in parliament, the others stay opposed to the idea.
Wrong strategies, waning organizational strength, divided party leaders -- is this the BNP or the Republican party?
Several mid-level leaders allege that a group of former bureaucrats who had misguided Khaleda Zia are now insisting that she take a hard-line stance.
Though most of its MPs-elect are back in the capital, the party was yet to announce officially whether to let them take oath. A number of senior leaders have however hinted that the party would join the ninth parliament.
Analysing possible reasons for the polls debacle, some BNP leaders said the grassroots fell far behind the rivals in the preparatory work due to the leadership's indecision over participation even a couple of weeks before the polls. Talking to The Daily Star, they also said controversial nominations gave a wrong signal to the people, especially when AL in most part left the leaders with dubious past out of its ticket.
Listing the guys who led the massacres against the civilians in the Independence War might have raised a hackle or two ...
The leaders pointed out that intra-party conflict over reforms was another cause of the poor showing in the election. It has weakened the organisational strength to a great extent. Ignoring the pro-reform leaders led to candidate crisis in many constituencies.
"It was a blunder to drop those ['reformists'] who have records of several wins under their belt," said a senior BNP leader who did not want to be identified speaking on the issue.
Khaleda Zia meanwhile has held a series of meetings with pro-BNP intellectuals to set the party's strategy. Almost all of them suggested playing a positive role in parliament, a source close to the chairperson told The Daily Star last night.
Some senior leaders and aides to the former prime minister however are trying to convince her to adopt a very hard line from the outset as they argued the government to come will fail to live up to its promises and start losing public support in months. "We want to see how Awami League fares in fulfilling the electoral pledges it made to the people," Khandaker Delwar told reporters yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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World oil prices have dived as traders banked profits from sharp gains made just ahead of the New Year and the news on the Israeli-Gaza conflict.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
One thing that has irritated me to some extent is why an Israeli-Hamas fight would in any way threaten oil supplies. Neither Gaza nor Israel produce oil in any exportable quantity.
It seems to me that you have news media and possibly speculators believing that anyplace in the middle east produces oil and somehow would disrupt supplies.
#2
Corsspatch,
Part of it is that OPEC cutback production in response to the '73 war. That started the long gas lines in the '70s. Another aspect is that wars can and often do spread. Iran is closely tied to Hamas and would like to cause trouble with its Arab neighbors, as it would benefit from higher oil prices. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but the oil traders are gazing into their smoke filled crystal balls.
#3
It used to be that if Israel was in an open shooting war, there was a threat they'd shut down the Suez Canal, which would affect oil deliveries from the Persian Gulf westwards. With the Gulf of Aden situation, I don't know that this traditional linkage makes any sense. The tankers should already be taking the Cape route.
It sounds like the oil bump was transitory, anyways. The commodity markets are kind of like a dinosaur with its tiny brain in its tail - thinks in very broad cliches, reacts rather slowly.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/03/2009 8:29 Comments ||
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#4
If this is so, then why have gas prices here north of seattle jumped 5-20 cents/gallon (different station reader boards) within the last 2 weeks?
The Austrian private bank Medici was placed under state supervision amid greater exposure to the Bernard Madoff scandal than previously disclosed. Medici said last month that two funds -- Herald USA Fund and Herald Luxemburg Fund, with a total volume of USD 2.1b - were exposed to the alleged fraud but did say by how much money was involved.
Austria appointed a supervisor to the bank, financial regulator FMA said, in the first known case where a government has stepped in to run a bank caught in the alleged USD 50b Madoff fraud. The regulator also said Bank Medici's chief executive Peter Scheithauer and board member Werner Tripolt have resigned.
The appointment of a government supervisor means the bank cannot take any major decisions without state consent.
The bank -- founded and largely owned by high-profile banker Sonja Kohn, whom media say has close ties to Madoff -- said it would cooperate fully with the FMA.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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Damn Bank Medici?
Your choice of Dagger or Poisoned Chalice with your deposit of 10K or more.
The steel industry, having entered the recession in the best of health, is emerging as a leading indicator of what lies ahead. As steel production goes, and it is now in collapse, so will go the national economy.
That maxim once applied to the Big Three car companies. Now they are losing ground in good times and bad, and steel has replaced autos as the industry to watch for an early sign that a severe recession is beginning to lift.
The industry itself is turning to government for orders that, until the collapse, came from manufacturers and builders.
Its executives are waiting anxiously for details of President-elect Obama's stimulus plan and adding their voices to pleas for a huge public investment program -- up to $1 trillion over two years -- that will lift demand for steel to build highways, bridges, power grids, schools, hospitals, water-treatment plants and rapid transit.
"What we are asking," said Daniel R. DiMicco, chairman and CEO of Nucor, a giant steelmaker with a Seattle plant, "is that our government deal with the worst economic slowdown in our lifetime through a recovery program that has in every provision a 'buy America' clause."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Damn, that's the ticket, STEEL! Cue Night on Bare Mt. then Anvil CHorus.
#2
I don't know about national economy, but tactical disadvantage at least. A modest tariff would solve the problem, I wouldn't want to compete with china and russia based solely on how little I'd work for. The 'free market' concept has put more americans out of work than anything I've ever seen.
#4
The 'free market' concept has put more americans out of work than anything I've ever seen.
Back in the 60s the old school economists stipulated that 5% unemployment was full employment, due to transits between jobs and other aspects which makes zero statistically unattainable. For most of this decade the country has been running at or below 5% to include employing literally millions of illegals. So I don't get this nostalgia over a era of large scale low skill manufacturing in which the unemployment figures were well higher.
#5
Procopius, that nostalgia, nay obsession with restoring economic conditions as they were from 1950 to about 1967 or so is very strong, and of course absurd and destructive. And thanks for pointing out the unemployment thing - I'm old enough to have been taught in econ at college that 5% was "full employment". Yet for years, anything approaching that (from the lower side) was met with hysterical shrieks of panic and whining by the political class, the moronic media, and many citizens.
In my own tiny, insignificant way I used to boycott any US firm that tried to steal my business (trade restrictions) rather than earn it. These days, that approach would leave me with little more than local produce to buy. Disgusting, and somewhat shocking, to see that in all of corporate America, there are only a handful of leaders with any integrity or brains (Wells fargo CEO and one other who resisted the "bailout" money from Treasury, e.g.).
Following the complete self-degradation and cowardice of the political class and half the electorate in 05/06 over Iraq, this doesn't leave much about the good ol USA to be inspired about.
#7
if the auto bailout works its magic, then steel shouldn't need any help; last time i checked a magnet sticks pretty good to most cars. maybe if folks don't ahve to worry about their job, they might just have the confidence to go out and buy a new car. me, i've put that off for 18 months or so...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
JOHANNESBURG - Seasonal rains could worsen a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe that has already killed more than 1,600 people, a senior international Red Cross official said on Friday. The outbreak has heightened the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe and the opposition are deadlocked over a power-sharing deal and the veteran leader is resisting Western calls to step down.
The steel industry, having entered the recession in the best of health, is emerging as a leading indicator of what lies ahead. As steel production goes, and it is now in collapse, so will go the national economy.
