An Afghan girl whose face was burned in an acid attack by suspected Taliban extremists has vowed to continue going to school, even if it puts her life in danger.
Men on motorbikes used water pistols to spray acid into the faces of Shamsia and around 12 other girls as they arrived at school in Kandahar.
Shamsia, 17, was the worst wounded in the horrific attack and had some acid enter her eyes. She was transferred to a military hospital in Kabul where she was visited yesterday by her fellow pupils.
“I will go to my school even if they kill me,” she said. “My message for the enemies is that if they do this 100 times, I am still going to continue my studies.”
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of the Taliban, which banned girls from school during its hardline rule from 1996 to 2001.
President Hamid Karzai and other officials blamed the attack on the “enemies of Afghanistan” - a broad term that most often refers to the Taliban insurgents.
However a Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said his group would “never do such a cowardly thing against girls and children”.
The insurgents have attacked and destroyed hundreds of schools across the country since they were forced from power in 2001.
This year around 115 schools have been set on fire, bombed or bulldozed in attacks education ministry spokesman Hamed Elmi blamed on “the opposition”. About 120 people in the education sector have been killed in attacks, he said.
The acid attack drew condemnation from the Afghan women’s ministry, which said yesterday “the enemies” could not stand in the way of education of women through such attacks.
“In Islam getting an education is the duty of men and women and being against this is being against religious orders,” it said.
Shamsia was equally defiant: “I’ll continue going to lessons. I’m studying to be able to build our country,” she said, her face covered in healing ointment.
Around 6.2 million children are now enrolled in school in Afghanistan. About 35 per cent of them are girls.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Acid attack girl defiant
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Women will always be womeN
Shahrizat to challenge Rafidah
By JOCELINE TAN
PETALING JAYA: Barely a day after Wanita Umno chief Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz announced that the wing’s power transition plan would remain as planned in June, her deputy Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has sprung a surprise.
She has decided to challenge Rafidah for the Wanita Umno leadership. Highly-placed sources said that Shahrizat had made up her mind to go for the wing’s top post which Rafidah has held for more than 20 years.
Shahrizat is expected to take Kuala Kangsar Wanita division chief and lawyer Datuk Kamiliah Ibrahim as her running mate.
Sources said Shahrizat wanted to exhaust all avenues before deciding on a challenge. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the marathon Wanita exco meeting on Monday that saw Rafidah loyalists bringing out the knives.
Rafidah’s loyalists insisted that the transition plan go ahead at the five-and-a-half-hour meeting.
Shahrizat was chastised for issuing a press statement — a day before the exco meeting — in which she asked Rafidah to consider going in March instead of June.
One exco member said she was taken aback by the language that several of the critics used.
“They ran her down, insulted her and bullied her into agreeing,” said the exco member.
Her critics were also upset about the nominations she got and implied she had conspired with Kamilia to get the endorsement.
She was even criticised for not inviting Rafidah to her Hari Raya open house. It is understood she received scores of SMSes after news broke out of the Wanita exco proceedings and it pushed her towards her decision.
Some scolded her for caving in to Rafidah, others expressed disappointment and said they felt betrayed, while others urged her to change her mind.
An aide said she spent half the night reading the SMSes, some of which were “hate mail” because some of the women were angry she had not resisted the transition plan.
Moreover, she has won 72 nominations against the 118 secured by Rafidah for the Wanita leadership.
Segambut Wanita chief and film producer Ruhani Abdul Rahman sa-id Shahrizat should go for it because “we are ready for a change.”
“A June transition would make Shahrizat an acting Wanita leader without a deputy for the next three years. What is the point of that?” said Ruhani.
Not invited to hari raya open house issues are only for WOMEN LOL!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
500,000 women die in pregnancy, childbirth: UNICEF
Despite modest progress, particularly in Asia, the global maternal mortality toll remains stubbornly stable due to a lack of financial resources and political will.
More than 99 percent of the estimated 536,000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2005 occurred in developing countries, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, it said in a report entitled 'Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Maternity.
One of the critical bottlenecks has always been access to highly skilled health workers required to deliver emergency obstetrical care, particularly caesarian sections.
Around 50 million births in the developing world, or about 4 in 10 of all births worldwide, are not attended by trained personnel, according to the report.
Hemorrhaging is the leading cause of maternal death in Africa and Asia, causing one in three deaths, it said. Infections, hypertensive disorders, complications of abortion, obstructed labor or HIV/AIDS are other causes.
Such complications can be easily treated in a health system whose facilities are staffed with skilled personnel to handle emergencies around the clock, but disparities persist.
The lifetime risk of maternal death in the developing world as a whole is 1 in 76 compared with 1 in 8,000 in the industrialized world.
The riskiest place to give birth is Niger, where the risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth over the course of a woman's lifetime is one in seven. In Sierra Leone it is 1 in 8.
But developing countries including Sri Lanka and Mozambique have succeeded in reducing maternal mortality rates.
A combination of family planning, training skilled birth attendants, emergency obstetrical care and post-natal care is the key to reducing maternal mortality.
At the current average reduction rate of less than one per cent a year, the world will miss the goal of reducing maternal mortality rates by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015, to less than 150,000, one of the Millennium Development Goals.
The time is right. We now know exactly what to do for maternal mortality reduction to make this one of the next big issues in global health.
Programs to combat three major epidemics -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria -- now receive the required international attention and billions in funding.
But maternal mortality and child mortality does not yet receive the attention that the scale of the problem deserves. An additional $10 billion would be needed each year to combat both child and maternal mortality.
UNICEF said last week that more than 9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2007, down slightly from a year before, but a huge gap remains between rich and poor countries.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Bush enjoying himself in Beijing
US President George Bush practices with US beach volleyball player Misty May Treanor at the Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
George W. Bush poses with US Women's Beach Volleyball team player Misty May-Treanor, left, and Kerri Walsh while visiting the Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Grounds during the 2008 Olympic Games.
President Bush gestures toward the back of Misty May Treanor as he visits the practice of the US beach volleyball team the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing.
US President George Bush shakes hands with with US beach volleyball player Misty May Treanor at the Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
US President George Bush shakes hands with with US beach volleyball player Misty May Treanor at the Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing. *ALL PICTURE TAKEN USING NIKON D300...Wednesday, August 6, 2008
High Heel Race in Moscow 19 July 2008
