Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Habibou Bangré, Journalist on afrik.com

Africa says no to disease. One of its leading preoccupations is AIDS. To fight the stigma associated with this affliction, which affects 20 million sub-Saharan Africans, a Miss HIV beauty contest is held each year in Botswana. With the same objective, openly HIV-positive people were married in Guinea, Kenya and the Congo.

Eradicating disease

To fight malaria, which kills more people than AIDS, African states are opting for more active molecules, and the encouraging tests on a potential vaccine at the British Glaxo Smith Kline laboratories in Mozambique are allowing some room for hope of a treatment. The French pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi-Aventis, and the non-governmental organisation (NGO), Médicaments pour les Maladies Négligées [Drugs for Neglected Diseases], should, for their part, be selling between now and 2006 a medicine costing less than a dollar in the countries of the South. Another challenge is sickle-cell anaemia. This genetic disorder of the blood is reported to kill half the 300,000 children with sickle-cell disease born in Africa each year before their fifth birthday.

Civil society is attacking "harmful traditional practices" (HTP). For example, in Burkina Faso, Niger, northern Mali and Mauritania, people are fighting excision - female genital mutilation (FGM) - and wife inheritance, the obligation of a widow to marry her deceased husband’s brother, and the force-feeding of girls to make them so fat that they look like women and can be married off early. The fight against these ancestral traditions is motivated by their dangerous, not to say life-threatening, nature.

To prevent the risks, warning campaigns have been run, with posters and advertisements on television and radio. The Inter-African Committee, like other NGOs, stresses positive traditional practices such as breast-feeding and massaging babies’ bodies - all activities sometimes supported by griots, imams and traditional chiefs. These intermediaries for the authorities have real influence over the people, who respect them and listen to what they have to say. The role of imams in making it clear that it is not demanded anywhere in the Koran is even more important in the case of FGM.

After this lobbying, those carrying out the procedure have accepted the blame. In Senegal, more than 1,300 villages have ceremoniously renounced the custom. Some countries are seeking a solution to FGM through education, others are choosing "symbolic wounding" of the clitoris instead of "cutting" it. Force-feeding is on the decline. Organisations and women are exposing the risks of the transmission of AIDS associated with wife inheritance and are rejecting it. As for early marriage, it is happening later as the result of schooling being provided for girls.

Polygamy is not considered to be an HTP, but it is practised less because more and more African women do not want to share their husband and wish to escape the torments of cohabitation with one or more other wives. One new development is that some educated women, while remaining independent, are agreeing to such marriages in order to escape pressure from their family and society.

To the rescue of Human Rights

October 21 is African Human Rights Day. The promotion, protection and defence of these rights are assured by associations and organisations, fifty of which are members of the Inter-African Human Rights Union. The Nigerian association, Timidria, is doing a remarkable job fighting slavery: exerting pressure to make it a criminal offence, increasing awareness, the reintegration of victims into society, etc. To ensure children’s rights to education and health, Uganda, Angola, Namibia and Ethiopia have embarked on successful birth registration drives. In several countries, associations defending gay and lesbian rights are emerging, even though homosexuality, considered a crime, is still condemned.

Saving the environment

Desertification is "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas" due "to climatic variations and human activities", according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) of June 1994. To protect the environment and food security in the Sahel countries, several States have signed and ratified the CCD and developed strategies. Lack of resources means that it is a struggle to implement them. Nonetheless, some original initiatives are to be noted, such as in Burkina Faso, where a pilot farm at Guié has developed "an erosion control technique" which can revitalize a soil in a single farming season. The nine countries of the Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel have been putting considerable effort into the battle since 1973.

Kenyan 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement fights deforestation, desertification and erosion. It also trains other nations on the continent in its methods of exploiting and conserving the natural world. To conserve the environment, Mozambique and Zambia are rejecting genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Applying the precautionary principle, they are refusing, despite the famine, GMO-based food aid from the United States. On the other hand, Burkina Faso - which has experimented with genetically modified cotton -, Ghana, Niger and Mali are "favorable" to GMOs if they present no danger to Man or nature.

Courtesy: Label France Magazine, Embassy of France, Kathmandu]-ed.

Prerequisites to a `Peace Regime' on the Korean Peninsula

Hong Kwan-hee, Director, Institute of Security Strategy, Seoul

During the recent fourth round of six-parry talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, Pyeongyang suddenly raised the issue of establishing a "peace regime" on the Korean peninsula. Thereafter, South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's positive response to the proposal has led to an open debate about the matter of pursuing a permanent peace regime for the Korean peninsula.

With the existing security struc­ture on the peninsula being based on the 1953 Armistice Agreement that brought the Korean War to an end, the establishment of a perma­nent peace regime will require this agreement to be replaced by a peace treaty. However, the reality for Korea is not so simple as that.

Above all, any serious discussion of a permanent peace regime must address the issue of the presence of foreign military forces on the penin­sula. As such, the U.S. forces sta­tioned in South Korea will emerge as one of the key issues of concern to all parties. Pyeongyang has already muddied the waters with such rhetoric as "Why are U.S. forces needed in South Korea at this stage when we are trying to build a per­manent peace regime on the Korean peninsula?" and "North and South Korea should be the primary actors in bringing about the mutual disar­mament and denuclearization of the peninsula:"

Up through the mid 1970s, North Korea had insisted on the conclu­sion of a direct peace treaty be­tween the two Koreas, which was conditioned on the removal of U.S. troops from South Korea and the reduction of both Koreas' militaries to below 100,000 active forces. However, following the fall of Saigon, Pyeongyang switched tactics and began to demand a bilateral peace treaty with the United States, while excluding South Korea from such negotiations on the grounds that it was not a signatory of the armistice agreement. Then, at the end of July, when the six-party talks resumed in Beijing after a prolonged layoff, North Korea made another about-face and proposed a peace agreement that would include the South. Under this proposal, the two Koreas, the United States, and China would be the parties that negotiated such an agreement.

U.S. Military Presence

What factors were behind North Korea's sudden interest to pursue a new peace regime? The key point is presumed to be Pyeongyang's as­sessment that, in contrast to prevail­ing circumstances of the past, South Korea is now more closely aligned with the North's interests. In the past, the alliance between South Korea and the United States was so rock-solid that North Korea could do little to drive a wedge between the two, which caused Pyeongyang to boycott the four-party talks on the Korean peninsula advocated by Seoul and Washington in the 1990s that included the same parties as its latest proposal.

However, now that cracks have been seen in the Seoul-Washington alliance, while South Korea's foreign policy has increasingly leaned to­ward China and North Korea, there is a likelihood that Pyeongyang has thus reached a conclusion that there is no longer any need to be overly worried about such a four-party for­mat, in particular regard to finding it­self in a disadvantageous negotiating position. As such, it is possible that such talks on a peace regime could reveal a 3-on-1 scenario, under which Washington would be the odd man out. Another possibility is a 2: 1: 1 alignment in which Seoul adopts a more meditative role.

North Korea has already launched an intensive propaganda offensive linking the conclusion of such a peace agreement with the pullout of U.S. troops from South Korea. In this regard, Pyeongyang has argued that the U.S. military presence in Korea is a major obstacle to the process of building a peace regime, along with stressing a principle of a national (pan-Korean), independent, and peaceful resolution of the Korean question, in accordance with the June 15 Joint Declaration related to the landmark summit between North and South Korea in 2000.

One noteworthy aspect of Pyeongyang's posture is that it has claimed the joint Declaration provi­sions and positive relations between North Korea and the United States are complementary in nature, while conducting multifaceted propa­ganda initiatives, which included the sending of correspondence to mem­bers of the U.S. Congress and the United Nations. In essence, North Korea's approach can be seen as a strategy aimed at taking advantage of the peaceful atmosphere prevail­ing between North and South Korea to achieve its underlying goal: the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the peninsula through the conclusion of a peace treaty.

Then, how should Seoul respond to this situation? To begin with, there is a need to make clear to the North that the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean peninsula must require the implementation of tension-reduction and confidence ­building measures. First, effective measures should be taken to ensure the removal of North Korea's mili­tary threat, especially its nuclear pro­grams; second, it is necessary for Pyeongyang to understand that the U.S. military presence in Korea and the Seoul-Washington alliance, both of which are of a defensive nature, are bilateral issues between South Korea and the United States, which will be undertaken and decided upon in this manner. These are non-­negotiable conditions that the North must accept in order to move for­ward with a peace regime for the Korean peninsula.

As such, the Roh Moo-hyun admin­istration should not commit the folly of falling into the trap of a North Korean peace strategy that trumpets "national (pan-Korean) collabora­tion". 'The U.S. military presence plays a vital role in ensuring the security of South Korea. Should the Rob admin­istration show a lack of prudence in dealing with this critical issue by not seeing through the true intent of Pyeongyang's calls for a peace regime, this would cast dark clouds over our country's future outlook.

Text courtesy: The Chosun Ilbo, August 30,2005, KOREA FOCUS. September-October 2005-ed.

Germany 2006:  Who will win the World Cup?

Your home is where your heart lies: The people of Germany are looking forward to welcoming the world to their home - for the 2006 World Cup.

Germany on 7 July 1990: No matter where, East or West, North or South: up and down the country people converged on market squares flying black, red and gold tricolours. Lines of cars weaved their way through German towns and cities, honking their horns. What was the reason behind this outburst of joy?

Celebration of unity

A few weeks before German reunification on 3 October 1990, the German football team beat Argentina 1:0 and became World Champions. In Germany, the post-match party became a celebration of German unity, of the peaceful revolution that was about to lift the Iron Curtain from above Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. In short, the Cold War was over, Germany was reunited and won the World Cup. Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared the Germans to be the "happiest, luckiest people".

 German soccer legend: The 'Miracle of Bern' in 1954

" ... Rahn had to shoot from behind ..."

Miracles do happen, you know. The 1954 World Cup in Berne certainly was a miracle: Germany reached the final but faced the clear favourites, Hungary. With only a few minutes to go, the match was tied at 2:2. Suddenly Germany's striker, Helmut Rahn, snapped up the ball and fired a powerful shot past Hungary's goalie into the net. A German sports commentator roared his legendary, virtually endless "GOOOAAL" over the airwaves. Germany had won the World Cup - and a whole country was in ecstasy. Post-war Germany had emotionally rejoined the international community.

Global event culture

Magnanimous gestures and great stories become frozen in time, engraved in collective memory. Whether in ancient Rome or in a contemporary football stadium, people come together in sports arenas sharing the same emotions. Nowadays millions, even billions, of people can share the same emotions in front of TV screens around the world. Football in particular is capable of bringing people together across all geographical and cultural divides. Major sporting events such as the Football World Cup have become part of the global event culture.  

The "Kaiser": Franz Beckenbauer

Not a King, a Kaiser

Popular footballers like Franz Beckenbauer are top-flight ambassadors and role models for their countries. Germany doesn't have a King, but it does have a "Kaiser" - Or at least that's what the people call Beckenbauer, who was born in a working class part of Munich. He first played in the World Cup in 1966 when he was 20 years old. He was involved in Germany´s last two World Cup wins - in 1974 as a player and in 1990 as team manager. For many Germans he personifies the fact that success can help you climb the social ladder.

 Motto: "Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden" /"A time to make friends"

The entire German nation is thrilled to host the 2006 World Cup. The 1974 tournament was held in West Germany only, but the 2006 World Cup will take place in a reunified Germany. Millions of visitors from all over the world will travel to our country to watch 32 teams play and compete for World Cup glory. Germany has adopted the slogan "Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden" ("A time to make friends") to underline the values that are most important to us: to be an open-minded, cosmopolitan and tolerant country and to be a good host welcoming our guests to our country on this magnificent occasion.

The Soccer Globe in Frankfurt am Main

Fantasy Football

A sculpture of a giant football by multimedia artist André Heller wets our appetite and gives us a premonition of the cultural program intended to accompany the sports event before the first whistle blows. This "Soccer Globe", positioned in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin can be seen from afar.

This is football symbolism at its best: you can almost visualise an imaginary giant enjoying a kick-about in central Berlin, kicking the mega ball through the goal-shaped monument now that the Brandenburg Gate is open again - and scoring the goal of the month with this massive football. Commentators go berserk over this accomplished finish and our giant takes his shirt off by the corner flag in ecstasy and total jubilation... then you wake up and realise this IS Berlin, but the World Cup still lies ahead.

Germany 2006

The preparations are already in full swing to ensure that the 18th World Cup is a spectacular festival and that the world can feel it is “A time to make friends”.

Germany will certainly be in the limelight when the 32 best teams in the world play for the World Cup between June 9 and July 9, 2006. Millions of foreign visitors will flood into the country and billions of people will follow the greatest sporting event of the year on television. The preparations are already in full swing to ensure that the 18th World Cup is a spectacular festival and that the world can feel it is “A time to make friends”.

The Organising Committee, the federal government, city authorities and stadium managers are working hand in hand. While Franz Beckenbauer greets the 31 participating foreign countries on a welcome tour as president of the Organizing Committee, the team around Horst R. Schmidt, Dr. Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach are meticulously preparing this world event. The experts of the German Football Association (DFB), the world’s largest sporting association with 6.3 million members, are experienced at organizing large tournaments. Former professional Jürgen Rollmann is coordinating important federal government services, without which this major event would be impossible. They range from transport infrastructure to the marketing of Germany as a business location through the Germany – Land of Ideas campaign and the wide-ranging Artistic and Cultural Programme to a large service and goodwill campaign.

A Time to Make Friends – this is the motto of the FIFA 2006 World Cup to be held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany. Alongside the hosts, 31 other teams will play 64 matches to pick the world champion in the world's largest sporting spectacular.

The games will be played in 12 stadia in 12 different cities. The opening match will kick off on 9 June in Munich. After four exciting weeks, the final will be held on 9 July in Berlin's Olympiastadion.

 Who will win the World Cup?

The 2006 World Cup is the 18th such tournament. But only seven teams have won since 1930: Brazil (5 times), Germany (3), Italy (3), Uruguay (2), Argentina (2), England (1) and France (1). After the Brazilian's third victory in Mexico in 1970, the Jules Rimet Cup, also called the "Golden Goddess", finally became their property. Since then the teams have been playing for the FIFA World Cup Trophy which Franz Beckenbauer was the first to receive in 1974 as captain of the victorious German team. Germany also won the World Cup in 1954 and 1990. Just like in 1974, Germany is again playing host and aims to win the title for a fourth time.

Football-crazy

Germany Needless to say, German fans are hoping the team will win and Germany is certainly a football-crazy country. The DFB (German Football Association) was founded as early as 1900. It now boasts more than 6 million members in almost 27,000 clubs. Every year, some 10 million fans attend Bundesliga matches. No country can compete with figures like these. Preparations for the World Cup are on schedule. The stadia are almost ready, infrastructure in the cities meets the highest demands. Much is also being invested in security so nothing can get in the way of a peaceful sporting festival. Germany is doing everything to ensure the millions of football fans and tourists feel at home.

[Deutschland Magazine, Embassy of Germany, Kathmandu]