Mission & Justice

Mark Henderson; 10/5/08

The fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa is founded on ineffective strategies and should focus on male circumcision and reducing promiscuity, according to leading scientists in the field. HIV containment is generally based on the “three pillars” - promotion and provision of condoms, HIV status testing and treatment of other sexually transmitted infections that can increase the risk of becoming infected. There is little evidence, however, that any of these methods works well in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of the 33.2million people who carry the virus live, a review for the journal Science has found.

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Joseph Mayton; 1/5/08

Almost two months after Amal Soliman became the gem child of Arab world feminists when she was appointed as the Islamic world’s first female maazun (notary), the men in Egypt’s Ministry of Justice still have not given their seal of approval.  Nevertheless, the latent women’s groups across the region have taken her March appointment as a sign of optimism. Soliman, 32, grabbed national and international headlines in late February when her successful application was made public. She beat out 10 other candidates, all men, for the position of Islamic notary, which authorizes her to conduct weddings, sign marriage certificates and authorize divorces.  With her degree in Islamic law from the University of Zagazig, in the Nile Delta, Soliman is qualified to take on the challenges, her supporters argue. Indeed, the Egyptian Justice Minister Mamdouh Mari said in a statement: “Soliman’s nomination depended on her abilities rather than on her gender.” But there are many critics. Islamic scholars, intellectuals and some citizens bemoan Soliman conducting weddings by arguing that a woman has unique limitations that get in the way of the job.

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3/5/08

A Sudanese cameraman with the Arab satellite news channel al-Jazeera arrived home early yesterday after being detained without charge for six years at the United States-run Guantanamo Bay military prison. A US air force plane carrying Sami al-Haj landed at a state security terminal in Khartoum. He was greeted by his family before being taken to hospital for medical checks, a watching photographer said. Mr Haj, who was held without charge at the prison in Cuba, arrived with two other Sudanese nationals also detained at Guantanamo, al-Jazeera said.

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Fatin Bundagji; 2/5/08

The economic status of women around the world needs immediate attention of the authorities concerned with national development. It is said that even though women make up half of the world’s population they are burdened to perform nearly two-thirds of its work hours; receive only one-tenth of its income; and own only one hundredth of its property. Any wonder then, why the United Nations initiated the global campaign for “women’s empowerment” by centerstaging this burning issue in its Millennium Development Goals? In the Middle East and North African region, it is estimated that by the year 2025 over 100 million jobs will need to be created to accommodate the influx of Arab youth entering the work force.

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Nick McKenzie; 21/4/08

Serving and former soldiers have broken ranks to expose the neglect, bullying and bastardisation faced by some Australian Defence Force personnel with mental health problems. The soldiers, who have served in the Middle East, East Timor and Africa, claim they were denied adequate support and ostracised after seeking help for mental health problems. The Age can also reveal that the family of an army captain who has served twice in Iraq and who has severe mental health problems has claimed he received an appalling level of care at a Queensland defence base in February. A letter from Defence about the incident says its health services work in a “frugal financial environment”.

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Linda Heard, 18/4/08

Like young people all over the world, getting married features high on the itinerary of most Egyptians in their twenties. But in most countries, tying the knot isn’t the often-insurmountable hurdle it is here due to a combination of poverty, antiquated customs and meddling from family members. Due to high unemployment, low wages and inflation, young men are being forced to delay getting married often until their 30s or even 40s, which means many girls of marriageable age are being left without a suitor. Selma (not her real name), the 26-year-old daughter of an Alexandrian lawyer, a bright and personable young woman, told me she fears being left on the shelf as there are not enough young men around with the wherewithal to marry while older men still seek brides in their late teens or early twenties.

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14/4/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7139

Egypt said on Sunday it would step up airport security procedures for British officials after authorities at London’s Heathrow Airport tried to search the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church. Egypt has already complained to Britain after airport authorities on March 30 tried to physically search Pope Shenuda III, 84, who has a diplomatic passport, before he boarded his flight. He was not physically searched but was “forced to go through a metal detector,” Egypt’s Deputy Foreign Minister Wafa Bassim told the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt’s parliament. As a result “we will apply the principle of reciprocity and treat British representatives the same way,” following the March 30 incident. She said that a “firm letter” had been sent to the British foreign office about the incident. During the same session, Shura Speaker Sawfat Sherif demanded an official apology from the British government. A spokeswoman for the British embassy in Cairo could not confirm that the letter had been received and declined to say whether ambassador Dominic Asquith would be meeting Shenuda to apologise for the incident.

Ramadan Al Sherbini; 4/4/08

A recent court ruling, obliging the Coptic Orthodox Church to allow divorced followers to remarry, has triggered rifts among Christian Egyptians, who account for around 10 per cent of this predominantly Muslim country of 76 million. The ruling, passed by the Higher Administrative Court earlier this month, was condemned by Pope Shenouda, who is Egypt’s top Christian cleric. “The Church is committed to the Bible and anything that violates this Holy Book cannot be adopted,” Shenouda said in a sermon last week.

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Susan Dorman and Richard E. Chaisson; 11/3/08

Tuberculosis, one of the most deadly infectious diseases, is back with a vengeance, especially in Africa. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is a difficult to treat strain of TB which, attacks where health systems are historically weak, especially in areas of high HIV prevalence. Failure to contain local outbreaks, develop tools and strategies for identifying and treating XDR-TB, and invest in longer-term improvements in TB control could transform our pharmacological magic bullets for TB into blanks. The development of TB chemotherapy from the 1940’s through the 1970’s transformed the once deadly “white plague” into a curable disease. But TB treatment has been shadowed by the spectre of drug resistance since the dawn of the antibiotic era. Fifteen years ago, an epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in New York City induced near panic, before a massive infusion of funds into the public health infrastructure turned the tide in the United States, and public interest waned. However, the problem of drug resistance has persisted, and efforts to contain it globally have not been sufficient.

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Nina Muslim; 10/3/08

Having marked International Women’s Day on March 8, and the progress made in achieving women’s rights everywhere, we should not lose sight of the fact that widespread discrimination against women persists in law and practice, directly or indirectly, all over the world. Public outcry and headlines tend to concentrate on egregious cases of female genital mutilation, punishment of rape victims, sexual slavery, and degrading treatment of all sorts. But it is “lower intensity” discrimination, often sanctioned by law, which condemns millions of women to daily hardship and suffering. Beyond sparse and mainly ritual condemnations, such pervasive conditions continue to fly below the international radar. A recent study, commissioned by the United Nations, underscores that this occurs despite the fact that the rights of women to equality and non-discrimination are enshrined in a number of international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter and, most extensively, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

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