UN estimate of Darfur deaths soars to 180,000

More than 180,000 people have died in Sudan's conflict stricken Darfur region over the past 18 months, UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says. The United Nations had previously estimated about 70,000 dead from the fighting, disease and malnutrition linked to the Darfur conflict.

The growing toll was announced as the United Nations struggles to find ways to end the violence in the western Sudanese region where almost two million people have been displaced.

"It has been at least 10,000, on average, of preventable deaths since the emergency became a big emergency, which was towards the end of 2003," the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs said.

If you say for the last 18 months, 10,000 a month, that's 180,000. It could be just as well more than 200,000 but I think 10,000 a month is a reasonable figure," Mr Egeland said.

He says the toll does not included those killed in the fighting between the local black population and government-backed militias. Mr Egeland last week said the 70,000 figure was obsolete.

The UN official says the toll has improved in recent months.

"Mortality has decreased in recent months because of effective relief work," he said.

More camps have been built and other international relief efforts have been stepped up over the past year. Mr Egeland said the violence was continuing in Darfur outside of refugee camps and that unless stabilisation efforts were increased the number of people forced out of their homes could rise to three or four million.

By In Solidarity 15 March 05

Related:

UN extends Darfur peace mission
The United Nations Security Council has voted to extend the UN mission in Sudan for one week as the council tries to work out an agreement on a peacekeeping operation and how to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

UN relief boss warns Sudanese rebels
The United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, has called on rebel groups in the Darfur region of Sudan to stop kidnapping aid workers and looting aid convoys.

Top UN official concerned about 'lack of progress' in Darfur
The top UN official in Sudan has expressed concern about a "lack of progress on the ground" in reining in marauding Arab militias in Sudan's western Darfur region, the United Nations said.

Sudan launches fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur: UN
Sudan has carried out fresh helicopter attacks in Darfur, worsening an already desperate humanitarian situation, while Arab militia targeted refugees trying to escape the conflict, the United Nations said.

African Union may send 2,000 troops to Darfur
The African Union (AU) may boost the number of troops deployed to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to 2,000, subject to the move gaining approval at a meeting of its members, a spokesman said.

Sudan rejects UN resolution deadline
Sudan has condemned a 30 day deadline set by the United Nations Security Council for action on Darfur, but has said it would implement a 90 day program as agreed earlier with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.

African Union considers Sudan peacekeeping mission
Intervention considered: The African Union says the Sudanese Government has failed to stop the bloodshed.

Annan urges more aid for Sudan
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is pressing governments for more aid for the troubled Darfur region, as the Security Council considers threatening the Sudanese Government with sanctions over its role in the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Indonesian Election: Australia $48 Million?
The threat from terror groups and failed states means Australia needs a high-tech, rapid deployment defence force, the defence minister says.

Terrorism obscuring world crises, Sir William says
The former governor-general, Sir William Deane, has advised Australians not to lose perspective about international crises during the ongoing focus on terrorism.

Annan, African leaders to hold Sudan talks
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will hold talks with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and other African leaders on peace initiatives in Sudan and Ivory Coast on Thursday, a Nigerian spokeswoman said.

US threatens Sudan with UN sanctions
The United States has circulated a United Nations resolution threatening sanctions against the Sudan government if Khartoum did not prosecute Arab militia leaders in the western Darfur region.

UN sanctions for Sudan 'unlikely'
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says Sudan has made little progress in curbing marauding militias in the Darfur region but diplomats said sanctions against Khartoum were unlikely.

Sudan rejects human rights report on Darfur
The Sudanese government has slammed a report by Human Rights Watch over the strife-torn western region of Darfur and accused the organisation of attempting to provoke the UN Security Council into imposing sanctions against the country.

Health catastrophe looms in Sudan: UN
A malnourished Sudanese refugee child lies at a feeding centre in Iriba Town in Chad.

Sudan decrees end to relief restrictions
The Sudanese Government, under international pressure to help displaced people in the western region of Darfur, has ordered an end to restrictions on the movement of relief organisations and imports of relief supplies.

Sudan urged to take urgent action to protect refugees
The UN is urging the Sudanese Government to take urgent action to protect more than 1 million refugees.

Report Concludes Needle Exchange in Prisons Safe and Effective

DUBLIN --- A new report to be released tomorrow, entitled Prison Needle Exchange: Lessons from a Comprehensive Review of International Evidence and Experience, provides the clearest evidence yet that these programmes - now operating in over 50 prisons in 6 countries - are both safe and effective.

The report, co-authored by IPRT Executive Director Rick Lines and published by the Montreal-based Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, concludes that the controlled provision of sterile syringes in prisons:

*reduces risk behaviour and disease (including HIV and Hep C) transmission;

*does not endanger staff or prisoner safety, and in fact, make prisons safer places for both staff and inmates;

*does not increase drug use or injecting;

*has been successfully implemented in a wide variety of prison environments

Following on the publication of the report the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) and Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) call upon the Irish Government to implement pilot needle exchange programmes in Irish prisons in order to protect prisoners, prison staff and the public from the further spread of HIV, Hepatitis C and other blood borne infections.

Speaking at the launch Tony Geoghegan, Director of Merchants Quay Ireland stated, "The report further highlights the safety and effectiveness of prison needle exchange programmes and I urge the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform and the Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy to set aside their difference on the issue and to implement these vital programmes before more people are infected and the lives of both prison staff and prisoners are unnecessarily placed at risk."

"The alarming rate of HIV, hepatitis C and injecting drug use in prisons demands urgent attention," continued Rick Lines, Executive Director of the IPRT. "Prisoners come from the wider community and most return to it. What is done - or not done - in prisons with regard to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and injecting drug use therefore has an impact on the health of everyone in Ireland."

Continued Mr Lines, "The National Drugs Strategy endorses the importance of syringe exchange programmes in reducing the transmission of disease among injecting drug users. The evidence is clear that these interventions would also yield significant health benefits for prisoners, prison staff and for the wider community.

To provide syringe exchange in prisons is not to condone drug use. Rather, it is a pragmatic public health measure that should accompany other efforts to reduce drug-related harm, such as drug treatment programmes and methadone maintenance.

The Government has a moral and legal responsibility take action to prevent the further spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C among prisoners and general the public, and should implement pilot prison syringe exchange programmes as a matter or urgency."

By CURE 18 November 04

The Center's Efforts to Protect Human Rights in Prisons and Jails
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and within the United States, the top 7 states with the highest incarceration rates are all Southern states (Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina).

No Time to Lose
HIV/AIDS and HEPATITIS C in NEW YORK STATE'S PRISONS

Related:

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme. The four institutions are to be offered as a job lot to be run by a private prison company in a deal thought to be worth £50m as part of an attempt to boost competition and "choice" in the penal system. It is also thought to be designed to tempt US prison firms into the British market.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

A life inside: Erwin James
This is my last prison column. After 20 years, I'm free. I just didn't expect it to happen with so little ceremony.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
UK: It has housed some of Britain's most notorious women prisoners, including Moors murderer Myra Hindley, serial killer Rose West, Diana Mosley, aristocratic wife of fascist leader Oswald Mosley and, most recently, Maxine Carr, girlfriend of Soham murderer Ian Huntley.

UK Miscarriages: Loss of innocence
Can anyone comprehend what it is like to spend years in prison for a crime you didn't commit? Eric Allison tracked down those still haunted by the experience - the victims of miscarriages of justice, and their families.

Prison service 'on brink of a race crisis'
Britain's jails are plagued by a culture of racism among a hard core of officers and have been rocked by allegations that black prisoners have been made to fight white inmates, [prisoners], for the amusement of warders, according to the union chief in charge of 33,500 officers.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal prison notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America: Part One BY LAURA MIRSKY.This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America.

UK: The injustice of jail
UK: Give or take Alcatraz, few prisons have a grimmer reputation than Holloway. The former chief inspector, David Ramsbotham, once declared it too disgusting to assess. Others have called the jail's cockroach-infested blocks the worst in the country. Holloway, its image pitched somewhere between Dante's Inferno and the penitentiary wing of Fawlty Towers, has never seemed a candidate for a good slammer award.

Belmarsh prisoners consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim prisoners released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism, [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], has [said], his fellow prisoners are suffering such 'severe mental problems' that they constantly consider suicide.

Revolving door: Criminal Law System
UK: They are just the opposite of master criminals. Indeed, in the words of Nick Davies in his latest three-part Guardian series on the criminal justice system, [? criminal law system], their criminal careers reflect "the same muddled inadequacy as they handle the rest of their lives". They were nearly all born and raised in chaos.

How the Prison Service Works
1.Abuse and torture inmates at HMP Wormwood Scrubs
2.Take years to admit a regime of violence and torture.
3.Settle 46 claims, paying 1.7 million to prisoners.
5.Carry on as before.
4.Keep 11 of the 14 prison officers responsible in their jobs.

Prisoners must get right to vote, says court
UK: The government will be forced to lift a ban on prisoners voting dating back to 1870 after the European court of human rights ruled yesterday it breached a lifer's human rights.

Cherie calls for women to be kept out of jail
UK: Cherie Booth today launches an impassioned attack on the jailing of women, warning of a 'cycle of poverty and crime' spiralling down the generations unless more female criminals are spared prison.

Blunkett charges miscarriage of justice victims 'food and lodgings'
UK: WHAT do you give someone who's been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn't commit? An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne?Compensation?

Prison needle cleansing programme
The Department of Health and the Prison Service appeared to be at odds last night over a needle cleansing programme designed to protect prisoners from blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures. The imprisonment rate of 141 per 100,000 makes the countries the prison capital of Europe for the second year running.

Don't put mothers behind bars
If we are to arrest the soaring prison suicide rate among women, we need to look at alternative punishment.

UK Prison Abuse: Guards Holding Nooses
'We will kill you. We will get away with it... we've done it before' Prisoners tell of hanging threats by officers holding nooses.

K K K in the UK
In the documentary it is alleged an officer dressed in a Ku Klux Klan mask at a training centre in north-west England. An undercover reporter from the BBC also claimed to have taped racist comments by some officers.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

My Sarah was smart and talented - Why did she die in jail?
LONDON: Sarah Campbell was just 18 when she killed herself [? committed suicide,] one of seven women to die in jail this year. Our correspondent asks why so many women kill themselves in prison [? commit suicide in prison.]

AMA calls for extra health funding for Aborigines

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is asking for an extra $450 million a year to be spent on the health needs of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.

The call comes in a report to be released today.

The study by Access Economics shows it would cost $400 million a year to meet the primary health care needs of Indigenous Australians alone.

AMA president Dr Bill Glasson says the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is on a par with some developing countries and improvements are desperately needed.

"We have got a chasm of people dying young, dying of renal disease, heart disease, lung disease, a whole range of systemic diseases that are killing these people," he said.

The report recommends around 900 extra health professionals are needed to provide the services - at a cost of $36 million a year.

The AMA is also asking the Government for fully-funded training places to increase the proportion of Indigenous Australians working in health care.

By AMA 12 August 04

Related:

WA bid to recognise 'original custodians' stalls Western Australia's Opposition has rejected a Government proposal to amend the state's Constitution to recognise Aboriginal people as the original custodians of the state.

Labor to request Senate inquiry into ATSIC's future
The Federal Opposition has announced it will call for a Senate inquiry into the Government's plan to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

Reconciliation dreaming
Djerrkura had witnessed the collapse of ATSIC, which he led from 1996 to 1999, with sadness. Despite the peak indigenous organisation's flaws, which he did not deny, its abolition, he said, had been done in "the classic imperial fashion, without negotiation, without understanding and with little empathy". He noted that as early as December 2001 he had called on his successor Geoff Clark to resign for the good of the organisation. But he reserved his harshest words for John Howard.

The bone has been pointed at Howard
A Queensland Indigenous leader says an ancient Aboriginal curse placed on Prime Minister John Howard is no laughing matter and could even have deadly consequences.Suspended Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner (ATSIC) chairman Geoff Clark was with a group of Aboriginal people who performed a ceremony known as pointing the bone at Howard at Colac in south-west Victoria this week.

PM in denial over Redfern Death in Custody
Prime Minister John Howard says treating Aborigines differently is contributing to violent confrontations with police.

INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT: ISJA
If we want to survive we must work at it Indigenous unemployment reaching crisis: welfare group Action to lower Indigenous unemployment rate Govt underspends on indigenous employment: dept Economic development: The outback malaise Call for end to Indigenous welfare cycle.

Australian Govt human rights record 'worsening'
Community groups have given the Federal Government five out of ten for its record on human rights this year. Mr Purcell said the Government was also marked down because of the policy of holding children in immigration detention centres.

O'Shane blasts constitution
Controversial New South Wales magistrate Pat O'shane has described the Australian Constitution as flawed and grossly inappropriate.

Demounting Auntie Isabel Coe
The information demountable and Auntie Isabel Coe's demountable were set alight at 3am last Saturday morning. The info demountable was completely destroyed- 31 years of photos and info on the grassroots Indigenous rights movement destroyed! Wilson Tukey (FUCKER)has wanted any excuse to get rid of the embassy for ages. This week he has been using the excuse that the burnt out shell is a danger to the community therefore the embassy must be removed.

Deny smokers surgery, says doctor

Diehard smokers who have been paying up to three times the price for the cigarettes they smoke, just in case they had to cover more medical bills, are now told by some doctors that they should be refused a wide range of elective surgery.

Elective Surgery such as hip replacements, according to a leading thoracic surgeon Matthew Peters, head of thoracic medicine at Sydney's Concord Hospital, accepts his approach is discriminatory.

You bet! It is more like a con as well because people have literally been paying for their additional medical problems for years to the Federal government paying three times the price for what they smoke to cover medical expenses.

A better idea would be to give the money the smokers payed to the Federal Government in taxes to a doctor who will deal with their medical problems.

Perhaps a doctor who wanted the work instead of one who doesn't.

Doctors who refuse the work should also be refused the money and they can just treat people they want to treat, instead of complaining about services to all citizens equally, regardless of their status.

What about the smoke pollution I inhale on my way through the city everyday? Do you think people can avoid that? What about exhaust fumes in the shopping centre car parks etc...

Dr Peters says smokers who have elective surgery are more at risk of wound infection and consume more healthcare resources. As above!

Medical ethicists and the anti-smoking lobby are critical of the approach, saying it unfairly targets the poor and a stronger focus on anti-smoking initiatives would save more money in the long run.

In an article in the Medical Journal of Australia, Dr Peters says persistent smokers "must accept that some risks are simply unacceptable".

Speaking from his Sydney home yesterday, Dr Peters said the risk of wound infection could only be reduced if a smoker quit six weeks before an operation.

A recent study found infection rates reduced from 27 per cent in continuing smokers to zero in those who had quit.

"Wound infection after joint replacement surgery is associated with, delays in hospital discharge, increased time to effective rehabilitation and massively increased cost of hospital care," he said.

But Stephen Leeder, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, said the idea was "really problematic".

"I think you can advise people to quit, but to make it a condition of medical care is really excessive," Professor Leeder said yesterday.

"In a democratic society we don't mandate behaviours like that."

He said it was important to provide smokers with information and help them to quit.

"But a lot of people have great difficulty quitting, they are not smokers because they want to be, but because they can't help it."

Professor Leeder and Cancer Council of Victoria director David Hill said the policy could also unfairly target disadvantaged people.

A study by Queensland University's School of Public Health said Australians in socially disadvantaged areas suffered almost twice the rates of smoking-related diseases.

Professor Hill said Australia still rated poorly internationally on smoking prevention spending. US states that significantly increased spending on anti-smoking programs saw a fall in dependence.

But Dr Peters said the decision on whether to refuse surgery to a smoker could be weighed up on a case-by-case basis and doctors would be mindful of the impact on more vulnerable patients.

"I would argue it is almost unethical to spend healthcare resources in ignorance of the medical evidence," he said, adding that there were 40,000 joint replacements a year.

British American Tobacco spokesman John Galligan said yesterday smoking contributed $5.3 billion in excise duties.

"I think it's wrong to discriminate against anyone in society," Mr Galligan said, adding that smokers were often made to feel like "pariahs".

"Sometimes smokers feel alienated. At what point do you end? Drinkers? People with high-fat diets?"

But Dr Peters said clinical evidence showed the obese did not have worse recovery rates from elective surgery than the general public.

By The Addicted 5 April 04

BUGS BUNNY: Nah. What's up Doc? Even when smokers have been paying for the risk? Those risks have been acknowledged by past governments, who have increased the price of cigarettes three fold, to cover the additional risks. Didn't anyone inform Dr Peters? And what about environmental smoke?

Prison needle cleansing programme

Disinfecting Tablets

The Department of Health and the Prison Service appeared to be at odds last night over a needle cleansing programme designed to protect prisoners from blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis.

From April 1, inmates, [prisoners], will be given disinfecting tablets similar to those used for sterilising babies' bottles. But health department officials said last night that cleansing tablets were not the best way to protect against the transmission of diseases.

"I don't think we would encourage this [needle-cleaning] as being as effective as the issuing of sterile needles," said a spokesman. "We don't recommend it. We regard the needle-exchange programmes in place throughout the whole of the [health] system as the most effective way of reducing blood-borne diseases."

A disinfecting scheme was first tried in 1995, but was later withdrawn for safety reasons.

Doctors and drug-user support groups have also challenged the move, claiming that a needle exchange scheme would be safer and more effective.

Critics claim ministers fear that the introduction of a needle exchange scheme would be a tacit admission of the scale of the drugs problem in prisons.

"There is no foolproof way of cleaning injection equipment - it is easy to get the cleaning process wrong," said Michael Linnell of Lifeline, a drugs support agency. "You could be encouraging people to share because they think the equipment has been cleaned. That increases the risk of spreading blood-borne viruses."

The Guardian has obtained a copy of Prison Service instructions on the scheme issued to governors, including those in private jails.

It says the new policy aims to combat "the spread of HIV and other blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis, [which] are readily spread when drug users share contaminated injecting equipment".

It points out that that "similar arrangements [for cleaning needles] have worked well in Scottish prisons since 1993".

The Prison Service says the scheme was approved by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was asked to design a strategy for the reintroduction of disinfecting tablets at all penal establishments.

The school believes that a tablets pilot scheme tested at 11 prisons between 1998 and 1999 was successful, and that the scheme should operate in all prisons. The home secretary, David Blunkett, has accepted its advice.

Last night a spokesman for the Department of Health said it was not opposed to the cleansing scheme in prisons. "Whilst it is acknowledged in the community at large that needle exchange programmes are an effective method, there are drawbacks to similar schemes in institutional environments," it said.

But a consultant in tropical and blood-borne diseases in the north-west of England said needle cleaning was less efficient than needle exchange.

"A needle exchange programme has been in place in Manchester for far longer than in some other cities," he said. "That is almost certainly the reason why Manchester has a lower prevalence of the spread of blood-borne diseases than areas which started similar schemes much later."

A GP who practises in an area with a high rate of heroin use added:

"Disinfectant tablets may prevent the spread of some skin diseases, but are unlikely to combat blood-borne viruses effectively."

By Eric Allison, prisons correspondent posted 4 March 04

Related:

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures. The imprisonment rate of 141 per 100,000 makes the countries the prison capital of Europe for the second year running.

Don't put mothers behind bars
If we are to arrest the soaring prison suicide rate among women, we need to look at alternative punishment.

UK Prison Abuse: Guards Holding Nooses
'We will kill you. We will get away with it... we've done it before' Prisoners tell of hanging threats by officers holding nooses.

K K K in the UK
In the documentary it is alleged an officer dressed in a Ku Klux Klan mask at a training centre in north-west England. An undercover reporter from the BBC also claimed to have taped racist comments by some officers.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

My Sarah was smart and talented - Why did she die in jail?
LONDON: Sarah Campbell was just 18 when she killed herself [? committed suicide,] one of seven women to die in jail this year. Our correspondent asks why so many women kill themselves in prison [? commit suicide in prison.]

Indigenous community riddled with eye disease: study

The Fred Hollows Foundation says it is not suprised by a study that has found 40 per cent of children at one central Australian Aboriginal community have the eye disease trachoma.

The foundation treats eye and other health problems in Australia and overseas.

The foundation's Chip Morgan says the problem is rife among Aboriginal communities despite it being considered almost exclusively a third world disease."Indigenous communities have conditions which, and certainly living conditions, which are comparable to third world countries so we have this third world disease within a first world country," he said."We're one of the few first world countries where trachoma still exists as a disease."It's mainly a disease which impacts as a result of poverty."

The Fred Hollows Foundation says attempts to eradicate trachoma are being held back by other life threatening health issues. Mr Morgan says trachoma is often seen as a lower priority.

"There's so many compelling health issues that trachoma actually falls down the list a bit," he said."It's not life threatening and indeed there's many people in the Northern Territory who are not even achieving sort of an age whereby that the scarring can can cause blindeness because life expectancy among Indigenous people is so low."

By Eye Sore 22 January 03

SKIPPY: Australia the third world country?

Related:

Chip off the old Block
Part of Redfern has been running sore for years. A new development promises to clean up the drugs, violence and poverty. But some locals say they have heard it all before.