Cape Town — The dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices of the apartheid era had a neg­a­tive impact on the med­ical edu­ca­tion of

black stu­dents, the care of black patients in pri­vate as well as pub­lic insti­tu­tions, and the careers of black med­ical doc­tors. Medical stu­dent train­ing pro­grammes at most uni­ver­si­ties ensured that white patients were not exam­ined by black med­ical stu­dents either in life or after death. Post-mortems on white patients were con­duct­ed in the pres­ence of white stu­dents only; stu­dents of colour were per­mit­ted to view the organs only after they were removed from the corpse.

Public and pri­vate hos­pi­tals reflect­ed the mores of apartheid South Africa. Ambulance ser­vices were seg­re­gat­ed, and even in emer­gen­cies a des­ig­nat­ed “white ambu­lance” could not treat and trans­port crit­i­cal­ly ill or injured patients of colour. Public hos­pi­tals had sep­a­rate wings for white and black patients and med­ical staff. Many pri­vate prac­tices had sep­a­rate entrances and wait­ing rooms for patients with med­ical insur­ance and those pay­ing cash, effec­tive­ly seg­re­gat­ing white and black. Doctors treat­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers faced dual loy­al­ties on a reg­u­lar basis. Some, like Dr Wendy Orr, resist­ed the gross human rights vio­la­tions, while many were com­plic­it. In par­tic­u­lar, the abhor­rent treat­ment of med­ical stu­dent and polit­i­cal activist Steve Biko received inter­na­tion­al attention.

The con­duct of dis­trict sur­geon Dr Ivor Lang and chief dis­trict sur­geon Dr Benjamin Tucker in the Biko affair was inde­fen­si­ble. They failed to exam­ine Biko ade­quate­ly, did not attempt to elic­it even a basic his­to­ry from him, and did not pro­vide ade­quate care or treat­ment. Instead, they acqui­esced to the instruc­tions of the secu­ri­ty police, neglect­ing to place the best inter­ests of their patient above all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. This unpro­fes­sion­al con­duct may be explained by the con­flict of the doc­tors caught in a clas­si­cal “dual-loy­al­ty” sit­u­a­tion — one in which their duty to their patient, Biko, con­flict­ed with their (per­ceived) duty to the state. In fact, Tucker sub­se­quent­ly admit­ted: “I had become too close­ly iden­ti­fied with the inter­est of the organs of the state, espe­cial­ly the police force, with which I dealt prac­ti­cal­ly on a dai­ly basis… I have come to realise that a med­ical practitioner’s pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion is the well-being of his patient.”

GR McLean and Trefor Jenkins make the point that the Biko case is an exam­ple of a dif­fi­cult ethics case not because it is dif­fi­cult to know what the moral­ly cor­rect course of action is, but “because it is hard to do what one ought to do”. The duty of the doc­tors involved in Biko’s case was clear, but per­form­ing that duty was dif­fi­cult. They had become so accus­tomed to work­ing with the secu­ri­ty police and regard­ing the detainees as dan­ger­ous ter­ror­ists rather than patients that they had dis­en­gaged from the duties and the respon­si­bil­i­ties of their pro­fes­sion. Neither the Medical Association of South Africa (Masa) nor the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC) sup­port­ed charges of mis­con­duct or uneth­i­cal con­duct against the doc­tors involved in the Biko case.

The Biko affair marked a moral thresh­old in pub­lic life. The rep­u­ta­tion of the med­ical pro­fes­sion had nev­er sunk as low. Confidence had evap­o­rat­ed. It was no longer just a mat­ter of moral wrong­do­ing by a few med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Through the actions of Masa and the SAMDC, the whole organ­ised med­ical pro­fes­sion became impli­cat­ed in that wrong­do­ing. It was only after a small group of doc­tors (Frances Ames, Edward Barker, Trefor Jenkins, Leslie Robertson, and Phillip Tobias) suc­cess­ful­ly obtained a Supreme Court rul­ing to force the SAMDC to re-open the case against the Biko doc­tors that the coun­cil did so in 1985. Ultimately, Lang was found guilty of improp­er con­duct and received a cau­tion and a rep­ri­mand; Tucker was found guilty of improp­er and dis­grace­ful con­duct and was lat­er struck from the med­ical roll.

Other human rights vio­la­tions occurred at the hands of physi­cians, many of them in pris­ons and the mil­i­tary. In par­tic­u­lar, Dr Wouter Basson joined the South African Defence Force as head of Project Coast — the chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal war­fare pro­gramme of the apartheid gov­ern­ment. It was only in 1998, dur­ing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hear­ings, that the details of the activ­i­ties of Project Coast emerged: the man­u­fac­ture of bio­log­i­cal weapons, secret stock­piles of lethal bac­te­ria to kill peo­ple with pig­ment­ed skin selec­tive­ly, and chem­i­cals and drugs devel­oped specif­i­cal­ly for use against ene­mies of the apartheid South African gov­ern­ment. Although Basson gave evi­dence at the TRC hear­ings for 12 hours in 1998, he did not apol­o­gise, he did not show remorse, and he did not request amnesty. Finally, after a 13-year-long case with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), Basson was found guilty of uneth­i­cal con­duct in December 2013. Although he argued that he had act­ed as a sol­dier and not a doc­tor, that med­ical ethics were dif­fer­ent for mil­i­tary doc­tors, and that he had no doc­tor-patient rela­tion­ship with those he harmed, among oth­er argu­ments, a long-await­ed guilty ver­dict was reached.

Although the Sama issued a state­ment in sup­port of this ver­dict, Basson retains his mem­ber­ship in the organ­i­sa­tion Apartheid cor­rupt­ed the moral fibre of South African soci­ety in a man­ner that per­me­at­ed and broke the core eth­i­cal covenants of the med­ical pro­fes­sion. Separation between the pro­fes­sion and the state became opaque and ambigu­ous. Through this dense veil of con­fu­sion, a minor­i­ty of health pro­fes­sion­als were able to see their way clear and rebel against injus­tices in health care in the pris­ons and secu­ri­ty forces. However, the stance of many was one of indif­fer­ence or, worse still, com­plic­i­ty. Public hos­pi­tals are now ful­ly inte­grat­ed. HPCSA man­dat­ed that ethics train­ing for all reg­is­tered pro­fes­sion­als become com­pul­so­ry. All med­ical schools are now com­pelled to pro­vide train­ing in ethics, law, and human rights as a com­pul­so­ry part of their curricula.

Medical under­grad­u­ate train­ing ensures equi­ty in stu­dent intake and train­ing, except for a minor­i­ty of apartheid insti­tu­tions that con­tin­ue to use lan­guage as a bar­ri­er to entry, there­by deny­ing access to non-Afrikaans-speak­ing stu­dents, who are typ­i­cal­ly black. We hope that this bleak chap­ter of med­ical his­to­ry will nev­er be repeat­ed. * This is an edit­ed extract from a paper Dual Loyalties, Human Rights Violations, and Physician Complicity in Apartheid South Africa first pub­lished in the AMA Journal of Ethics. Story orig­i­nat­ed here: Apartheid cor­rupt­ed the med­ical pro­fes­sion October 6 2015 at 03:44pm

**

Sam Champion tried to return to ABC News when it became clear that his Weather Channel morn­ing show was a fail­ure, but his for­mer “Good Morning America” boss­es told him there was no room for him at the net­work any­more, sources tell Confidenti@l. “He thought he’d be show­ered with mon­ey, pow­er and pres­tige” when he ditched “GMA” at the height of its pop­u­lar­i­ty for the Weather Channel in 2013, a TV indus­try insid­er told us. “Instead, he’s been left high and dry.”

“We love Sam and he’ll always be part of the ABC fam­i­ly, but we’ve got the best weath­er team in the busi­ness already in place,” said an ABC rep. The Weather Channel, which is part-owned by NBC and two large equi­ty funds — Blackstone Group and Bain Capital — has been mak­ing major changes as it seeks to cut costs in the wake of reports that the funds are try­ing to sell their stakes. Among the most vis­i­ble moves in recent days: a plan to focus more on weath­er and less on lifestyle and real­i­ty pro­gram­ming. That includes clos­ing the company’s New York City stu­dio, can­cel­ing Al Roker’s ear­ly-morn­ing show and remov­ing Champion from the low-rat­ed “AMHQ.”

Champion, who is said to be paid around $2 mil­lion a year, will now focus on prime-time weath­er report­ing and “dig­i­tal prod­ucts,” accord­ing to a Weather Channel staff memo. His final “AMHQ” tele­cast is Oct. 30. Fifty staffers will lose their jobs as a result of the changes. “He is pissed!” says a source close to Champion. According to our insid­er, “He left ‘GMA’ for this job with tons of promis­es, includ­ing get­ting a per­cent­age of mer­chan­dise sold with his name on it — umbrel­las, boots, hats, etc. None of it hap­pened.” The chan­nel very pub­licly lured him away in December 2013. “Brand Champion” was promised more mon­ey and influ­ence as well as the right to mar­ket mer­chan­dise under his own name, which his con­tract at ABC pro­hib­it­ed. “This is not true,” said a Weather Channel rep. “There is no such lan­guage (about mer­chan­dis­ing) in his contract.”

Though Champion will remain with the Weather Channel “to cre­ate reg­u­lar prime-time shows that high­light the inter­sec­tion of new tech­nolo­gies and weath­er,” accord­ing to the chan­nel, it is clear that his chance to become “the face of the net­work” — as he was promised — has passed.

“They’d love to get rid of him and his big salary,” a source said, but right now they’re stuck with each oth­er. We’re also told Champion remains close to his for­mer “GMA” col­league Josh Elliott, who left ABC short­ly after Champion to work for NBC Sports. “They are both start­ing to think they were played,” a source told Confidenti@l. “NBC want­ed to destroy the ‘GMA’ fam­i­ly. They didn’t care about Sam or Josh.”

NBC and ABC have been locked in a morn­ing-show rat­ings war that saw ABC take a lead in May 2013 that it hasn’t relin­quished. NBC has nar­rowed that gap since Champion and Elliott’s depar­tures. But Elliott’s future at NBC has become uncer­tain, and he’s rarely been seen on air. Worse, he got a luke­warm endorse­ment from his boss, NBC Sports chiefMark Lazarus, in an inter­view Thursday with The Wrap. “Josh is still at this point a part of the com­pa­ny and we’re work­ing to see what kind of sched­ules can work,” Lazarus said. Asked if there was a “good chance” Elliott won’t be part of NBC in the near future, Lazarus respond­ed, “Don’t know.”

TV insid­ers not­ed there were many com­mon denom­i­na­tors between Champion and Elliott, includ­ing both being rep­re­sent­ed by pow­er agents at CAA likeOlivia Metzger and Alan Berger, who “played to Sam and Josh’s big egos” and talked both men into leav­ing “Good Morning America” for lucra­tive deals “that have since gone nowhere.” Read more here :Sam Champion, his Weather Channel show tank­ing, tried to go back to ABC

Ocho Rios, St Ann:

Faced with an increase in mur­ders in St Ann, over last year, recent­ly installed com­man­der for the parish, Superintendent Wayne Cameron, has appealed to cit­i­zens to coöper­ate with the police to reduce the mur­der rate. Speaking with The Gleaner at a wel­come recep­tion for 23 new police per­son­nel, host­ed by the St Ann Justices of the Peace Association, at the John McDowell Conference Centre at the St Ann Chamber of Commerce com­plex at Pineapple, Ocho Rios, Cameron high­light­ed three areas in which res­i­dents could assist. “I am say­ing to the cit­i­zens of the parish that, one, where they have domes­tic issues call upon the police to assist them to work­ing through it. We have had too many domes­tic sit­u­a­tions that have esca­lat­ed into mur­ders, so the police are will­ing to work with you. “Two, where you have observed that strange peo­ple are enter­ing and leav­ing your com­mu­ni­ties, call the police.

Gun Campaign

“And, final­ly, we are on a get-the-gun cam­paign, so if you know where ille­gal guns are kept, or of peo­ple who are car­ry­ing ille­gal guns, please let me have the infor­ma­tion. You have my full con­fi­dence.” Turning to the new offi­cers, Cameron said where­as they have to be prop­er­ly super­vised, they are expect­ed to per­form well and main­tain a high lev­el of dis­ci­pline. “And we ask cit­i­zens of the parish to coöper­ate with us,” he urged. Meanwhile, chair­man of the asso­ci­a­tion, Pixley Irons, used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to encour­age the police. He pre­dict­ed that one of them would, one day, rise to become com­mis­sion­er of police. “We would like to get a suc­cess sto­ry from this group,” he encour­aged them. “I might not (be around to) know, but you can men­tion it in your inau­gur­al speech, if a com­mis­sion­er comes from this group.” Irons described the meet­ing as being “good”. “We decid­ed to meet with them, to intro­duce them and let them know what we expect of them; to tell them some of the con­cerns that we are hav­ing, and what we are look­ing for­ward to from them in the future.” “We hope we can do anoth­er ses­sion like this lat­er on, to guide them along Read more here :St Ann Justices Of The Peace Welcome New Cops To St Ann: Superintendent Urges Citizens To Coöperate With Police

WASHINGTON — Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.) would be will­ing to risk going to war with Russia in order to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria.

In a Monday inter­view with CNBC’s John Harwood, the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date argued that doing noth­ing would only embold­en ter­ror groups like the Islamic State and increase the num­ber of refugees com­ing out of Syria.

“I am con­fi­dent the Air Force can enforce that,” Rubio said of a hypo­thet­i­cal safe zone in Syria. “I believe the Russians would not test that. I don’t think it’s in the Russians’ inter­est to engage in an armed con­flict with the United States.”

Asked what he would do if Russian forces decid­ed to enter the safe zone any­way, Rubio respond­ed, “Well, then you’re going to have a prob­lem. But that would be no dif­fer­ent than any oth­er adversary.”

Imposing a uni­lat­er­al no-fly zone at a time when Russian air­craft are already present in the sky over Syria would sub­stan­tial­ly increase the risk of armed con­flict, mil­i­tary experts told the Christian Science Monitor last week.

But Rubio, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was will­ing to accept the con­se­quences of armed con­flict with Russia and President Vladimir Putin because the alter­na­tive, in his view, “is worse.”

“The alter­na­tive is [Syrian President Bashar] Assad will remain in pow­er but nev­er con­trol the whole of Syria again,” he said. “The alter­na­tive is the con­tin­ued growth of non-ISIS ter­ror­ist groups in addi­tion to ISIS itself.

“That being said, we can­not say, well, if Putin is going to test us, we can’t do any­thing. You basi­cal­ly at that point ced­ed to him as becom­ing the most influ­en­tial geopo­lit­i­cal bro­ker in the region,” he added.

Rubio isn’t the only GOP pres­i­den­tial con­tender to voice sup­port for estab­lish­ing a no-fly zone in Syria. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, for­mer Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑S.C.) have done so as well.

Democratic pres­i­den­tial con­tenders are split on the mat­ter. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she sup­port­ed cre­at­ing “a no-fly zone and human­i­tar­i­an cor­ri­dors to try to stop the car­nage on the ground and from the air.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.), her chief rival for the nom­i­na­tion, said he oppos­es the impo­si­tion of a no-fly zone because it could get America “deeply involved in that hor­ri­ble civ­il war and lead to a nev­er-end­ing U.S. entan­gle­ment in that region.“Story orig­i­nat­ed here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​m​a​r​c​o​-​r​u​b​i​o​-​r​u​s​s​i​a​-​n​o​-​f​l​y​-​z​o​n​e​_​5​6​1​2​e​3​8​a​e​4​b​0​3​6​8​a​1​a​6​0​a​d06

FORMER PRIME Minister Bruce Golding says he is “uncom­fort­able” with the Government’s accep­tance of pro­posed arrange­ments by British Prime Minister David Cameron for the con­struc­tion of a new prison, on terms which he says are not in Jamaica’s best interest.

Speaking dur­ing the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) South West St Elizabeth Constituency Awards Banquet in Black River on Saturday night, Golding said the terms for the pris­on’s con­struc­tion in Jamaica will ulti­mate­ly place a severe strain on the coun­try’s finances.

He cau­tioned the Government against bur­den­ing the coun­try with respon­si­bil­i­ties which should be borne by Britain.

“I told the British prime min­is­ter (Gordon Brown) — in 2008 I think it was — when the idea was raised, I said, ‘Prime Minister, these are your pris­on­ers, you know, not mine. Look, I can’t take that on’ … . I said, ‘If one of your peo­ple come to Jamaica and com­mit a crime and he is found guilty, we have to lock him up in our prison; we can’t put him on a plane and send him back …,” Golding said.

“You mean, there is nobody in the Government who can say to the prime min­is­ter of Britain, ‘Sorry, we can’t work with that.’ Or if we gonna work it, this is how it has to work? Where is that mon­ey to come from?” he added.

Gov’t Taking On A Burden

Golding said since the £25 mil­lion in assis­tance from the United Kingdom would account for approx­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of the cost to con­struct the prison, Jamaica would have to find the remain­ing 60 per cent, as well as under­take the bur­den of hous­ing and feed­ing the pro­posed 300 pris­on­ers to be repa­tri­at­ed, as pro­posed by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“So, why can’t some­one say to Prime Minister Cameron: ‘All right, fine. We’re glad for the £25 mil­lion. Now, how much a month you going pay for the board­ing of these pris­on­ers that you send … ? Because they did­n’t com­mit no crime in Jamaica; they weren’t con­vict­ed in Jamaica. So what you are real­ly doing is you’re con­tract­ing us to man­age a prison for you, but to man­age it in Jamaica. And if they enter into that kind of con­tract, they must pay for it. You mean we so ‘fraid a dem?” he questioned.

“This is a poor coun­try; we don’t have no mon­ey; we can­not fix roads. Our pris­ons are over­crowd­ed. We don’t have any emp­ty space in Tower Street or St Catherine (cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties). The British gov­ern­ment has more than 2,000 emp­ty cells in their pris­ons. Britain has a whole heap of mon­ey that we don’t .; Britain is a rich coun­try; we are a poor coun­try,” he continued.

He said under Cameron’s cur­rent pro­pos­al, the Government of Jamaica would have to source the funds for con­struct­ing the prison upfront and that by the time the prison is com­plet­ed, the pro­posed allo­ca­tion from the British would have already been exhausted.

“That prison is not like a two-bed­room house, you know,” he said. “That (prison) going take you two and a half years to build at least. And the prime min­is­ter of Britain said he going send back dem guys here by 2020. The point I am mak­ing is that that mon­ey going have to be found fair­ly quick­ly, and I ask the ques­tion: At what expense are you going to find that money?
Read more here :Are We Afraid Of Britain?’ — Golding Questions Unwillingness To Negotiate Better Prison Deal

THERE were tense moments at yes­ter­day’s St Andrew East Rural can­di­date selec­tion exer­cise at the People’s National Party (PNP) head­quar­ters in St Andrew, as busi­ness­man Peter Blake defeat­ed incum­bent Member of Parliament Damion Crawford to secure the right to rep­re­sent the par­ty in the next gen­er­al election.

The selec­tion exer­cise teetered on the brink of a firestorm after it was announced by PNP Deputy General Secretary Julian Robinson that Blake polled 217 votes to Crawford’s 166, which flat-lined the young MP’s polit­i­cal career. Just over 500 del­e­gates were eli­gi­ble to vote. One bal­lot was spoilt.

Heading into yes­ter­day’s run-off, which began at 10:00 am and end­ed at 3:00pm, an embat­tled Crawford told the Jamaica Observer that he was “pret­ty con­fi­dent, hav­ing done the work”.

“Our peo­ple are com­ing out ear­ly; we knew the rain was going to fall, so we had to ensure that we had the Xs in the box­es. We are con­fi­dent… I think there are more peo­ple who are sat­is­fied than dis­sat­is­fied,” he said at that time, not­ing that it was an inter­nal elec­tion and imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing would be the process of get­ting “all PNP” on board.

Singing to the same tune, Blake, who was the 2011 stan­dard-bear­er for the par­ty before being replaced by Crawford, said: “We feel fair­ly con­fi­dent enuh… the peo­ple are about to speak, or have spo­ken already.”

At the same time, he rub­bished rumours that the par­ty would defy the del­e­gates and replace him for the high­ly antic­i­pat­ed gen­er­al elec­tion if he emerged the win­ner, insist­ing that the par­ty would not put the con­stituen­cy through the “trau­ma of a selec­tion” and not use him.

“It is being repeat­ed­ly report­ed to me by del­e­gates and con­stituents that my oppo­nent and his agent have been telling them that should I be suc­cess­ful in the upcom­ing selec­tion, that it is the inten­tion of the par­ty not to rat­i­fy me as the can­di­date,” Blake said in a let­ter to General Secretary Paul Burke.

In respond­ing to his con­cern, Burke said: “…My own opin­ion, based on your con­cerns about a neg­a­tive cam­paign being waged against you, is that they would have to be new con­cerns as the unsub­stan­ti­at­ed con­cerns of the past, I believe, could not hold any mer­it what­so­ev­er at this time.”

Orange-clad par­ty faith­ful in sup­port of Crawford con­verged just out­side the gates of the par­ty’s head­quar­ters, at times obstruct­ing traf­fic, eat­ing, drink­ing and smok­ing, while sup­port­ers of Blake stood on the oppo­site side of the road look­ing on tentatively.

Several tents set up by the MP housed sup­port­ers and mem­bers of his cam­paign team, who went through lists ensur­ing their del­e­gates had turned up to vote. In the mean­time, chal­lenger Blake, who oper­at­ed from a house on Bougainvillea Avenue in Mona, con­duct­ed a roll-call him­self before del­e­gates were trans­port­ed to the par­ty head­quar­ters where they cast their ballots.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, when Robinson announced the results, tem­pers flared as dis­grun­tled Crawford sup­port­ers became bois­ter­ous, hurl­ing objects at times and even threat­en­ing to fight.

“No Crawford, no vote!” sup­port­ers of the first-time MP shouted.

“East Rural St Andrew a go to Labourite since Crawford nuh get it!” one sup­port­er said, argu­ing that Crawford pro­motes edu­ca­tion and devel­op­ment of the constituents.

“This man is not about hand­outs and that is why them fight­ing him. Him build road, cen­tre, and edu­cate wi. Who is this Blake? Mi nev­er see him yet,” said anoth­er Comrade.

But the major­i­ty of the del­e­gates who vot­ed showed their approval for Blake, with one insist­ing that the busi­ness­man was who he saw work­ing in the con­stituen­cy for most of Crawford’s stewardship.

“Damion stand up and seh him nuh inna cur­ry goat pol­i­tics, but a nuh suh di ting guh. You can’t just change the ting suh; it’s a process,” Clifton Findley, a Blake sup­port­er said.

“Him dis wi — call wi all ply-board Comrades and cur­ry goat Comrades. Him seh him naah come nuh funer­al. Well, wi naah vote fi him,” Carlene Whyte, anoth­er Blake sup­port­er, said.

Blake, after learn­ing he had tri­umphed, said: “The peo­ple have spo­ken. The peo­ple are the pow­er and the peo­ple were over on this side.”

Asked what would be his next move, Blake respond­ed: “Whole heap of work, and we’re going to win the con­stituen­cy for the People’s National Party.”

He denied that there was any form of dis­uni­ty with­in the con­stituen­cy and extend­ed an olive branch to Crawford.

“Just work with me, just like how I worked with you and build the com­mu­ni­ty as one,” urged Blake.

In the mean­time, Crawford strug­gled to tem­per the reac­tion of his sup­port­ers who lev­elled accu­sa­tions of foul play against the par­ty Secretariat.

“I am as sur­prised as you are. But at the end of the day, the par­ty has pro­ce­dures and we entered, so there­fore, the results we have to accept,” he said to loud boos and shouts of “no”.

“I knew what I was risk­ing when I decid­ed to do what I did. I risked my career for chil­dren who I don’t even know their names. I spent $600,000 to do diag­nos­tic tests; I could have eas­i­ly done it for fer­tilis­er. So if you risk and don’t get the return, accept the risk,” the MP said to more boos from his supporters.

“I was a PNP before I was a can­di­date. I will remain a PNP, even if I am not a candidate.”

He down­played talk of foul play in the selec­tion, instead stat­ing that he had every con­fi­dence in the par­ty’s sec­re­tari­at. “There were 400 del­e­gates and the major­i­ty felt that what I did was­n’t sat­is­fac­to­ry, and I will sup­port the vic­tor 100 per cent,” said Crawford.

Crawford is the last among sev­er­al PNP mem­bers of par­lia­ment who have been chal­lenged for their candidacy.

The rum­blings with­in the con­stituen­cy emerged after Crawford announced that he would not be seek­ing re-elec­tion. He admit­ted that he was not con­vinced at the time of his announce­ment that the style of pol­i­tics he brought to the con­stituen­cy would pro­pel him to vic­to­ry at the polls. He lat­er made an about-turn, say­ing that his ear­li­er announce­ment was a trick. sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed here VIDEO: PNP dis­cards Crawford

Tanzania and United Nations launched the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the coun­try pledg­ing to trans­late the glob­al pro­grammes into its nation­al plans of action. On its part, the UN hailed Tanzania for hav­ing already trans­lat­ed the glob­al goals into the coun­try’s devel­op­ment pro­grammes. Speaking at the launch in Dar es Salaam, the UN Tanzania Resident Coördinator, Mr Alvaro Rodriguez, said that for the first time, gov­ern­ments of all coun­tries have agreed on a set of goals for every­one. “These goals will help all nations and all peo­ple share pros­per­i­ty, reduce pover­ty and pro­tect the plan­et from cli­mate change. They will address the inter­con­nect­ed ele­ments of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which includes eco­nom­ic growth, social inclu­sion and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion,” he noted.

A com­mis­sion­er at the President’s Planning Commission, Mr Paul Kessy, pledged the gov­ern­men­t’s readi­ness to imple­ment the 15-year goals. He not­ed that President Jakaya Kikwete and his team were in New York to endorse the glob­al goals with oth­er mem­ber states, which was an illus­tra­tion of Tanzania’s com­mit­ment to work­ing with part­ners such as the UN towards erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty. He added that this time round, strength­en­ing the means of imple­men­ta­tion and revi­tal­is­ing the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment has been accord­ed more empha­sis. A com­mis­sion­er from the Zanzibar Planning Commission, Mr Ahmed Makame, said that as he looks at the 17 SDGs, he feels proud that the coun­try has been part of the glob­al ini­tia­tive. “I feel opti­mistic that Tanzania is start­ing the road to meet the SDGs on the right foot. As we have learnt to the Millennium Development Goals, we saw how impor­tant it was to align the nation­al devel­op­ment strat­e­gy to the glob­al goals,” Mr Makame point­ed out. He added that Zanzibar was in the process of for­mu­lat­ing its nation­al devel­op­ment strat­e­gy and we have placed meet­ing the SDGs at the core of the for­mu­la­tion process,” he said. The Ambassador of Ireland to Tanzania, Ms Fionnuala Gilsenan, assured her coun­try’s sup­port for the SDGs, not­ing that the glob­al goals build on the MDGs but that they are more ambi­tious and they deal with new dimen­sions of old prob­lems. “They aim to tack­le the com­plex nature of pover­ty and inequal­i­ty. The SDGs can­not be con­tem­plat­ed in iso­la­tion from issues such as cli­mate change, gen­der equal­i­ty, human rights and tack­ling under­ling struc­tur­al inequal­i­ty,” she not­ed. Speaking on behalf of Project Everyone Partners, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, Ms Liz Lloyd, assert­ed the impor­tance of the pri­vate sec­tor part­ner­ing with the United Nations and the gov­ern­ment in spread­ing the mes­sage of the glob­al goals.

“As a bank, we often talk about the impor­tance of being here for good. This is not just a promise but an ethos that we try to live by every day,” she said. Ms Lloyd added that the glob­al goals offer a unique chance to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er world lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions, putting into prac­tice Goal 17 which aims to revi­tal­ize the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals (SDGs) are a new, uni­ver­sal set of goals, tar­gets and indi­ca­tors that UN mem­ber states will be expect­ed to use to frame their agen­das and polit­i­cal poli­cies over the next 15 years. The SDGs fol­low and expand on the mil­len­ni­um devel­op­ment goals (MDGs), which were agreed by gov­ern­ments in 2001 and are due to expire at the end of this year. The SDGs are to end pover­ty in all its forms every­where; end hunger, achieve food secu­ri­ty and improved nutri­tion, and pro­mote sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture; ensure healthy lives and pro­mote well-being for all at all ages, ensure inclu­sive and equi­table qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion and pro­mote life­long learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for all; and achieve gen­der equal­i­ty and empow­er all women and girls. Others are to ensure avail­abil­i­ty and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of water and san­i­ta­tion for all; ensure access to afford­able, reli­able, sus­tain­able and mod­ern ener­gy for all; pro­mote sus­tained, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, and full and pro­duc­tive employment.

They fur­ther seek decent work for all; and build resilient infra­struc­ture, pro­mote inclu­sive and sus­tain­able indus­tri­al­iza­tion, and fos­ter inno­va­tion. Other goals are to reduce inequal­i­ty with­in and among coun­tries; make cities and human set­tle­ments inclu­sive, safe, resilient and sus­tain­able; ensure sus­tain­able con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion pat­terns; take urgent action to com­bat cli­mate change and its impacts (tak­ing note of agree­ments made by the UNFCCC forum) ; and con­serve and sus­tain­ably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sus­tain­able development.

The remain­ing SDGs are to pro­tect, restore and pro­mote sus­tain­able use of ter­res­tri­al ecosys­tems, sus­tain­ably man­age forests, com­bat deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and halt and reverse land degra­da­tion, and halt bio­di­ver­si­ty loss; and pro­mote peace­ful and inclu­sive soci­eties for sus­tain­able development.

Others are to pro­vide access to jus­tice for all and build effec­tive, account­able and inclu­sive insti­tu­tions at all lev­els; and strength­en the means of imple­men­ta­tion and revi­talise the glob­al part­ner­ship for sus­tain­able development.

David Cameron has ruled out mak­ing repa­ra­tions for Britain’s role in the his­toric slave trade and urged Caribbean coun­tries to “move on”. The prime min­is­ter acknowl­edged that “these wounds run very deep” dur­ing his vis­it to Jamaica, where he faced calls to apol­o­gise from cam­paign­ers. He said Britain’s role in wip­ing slav­ery “off the face of our plan­et” should be remem­bered. Jamaican PM Portia Simpson Miller said she had raised the issue in talks.

‘Obvious sensitivities’

Addressing MPs in Jamaica’s par­lia­ment, Mr Cameron said slav­ery was “abhor­rent in all its forms”. He added: “I do hope that, as friends who have gone through so much togeth­er since those dark­est of times, we can move on from this painful lega­cy and con­tin­ue to build for the future.” Mr Cameron also announced £25m in British aid for a new Jamaican prison and a £300 mil­lion devel­op­ment pack­age for the Caribbean which will pro­vide grants for infra­struc­ture projects, includ­ing roads and bridges. He said his vis­it — the first by a British prime min­is­ter in 14 years — was to “rein­vig­o­rate” ties between the coun­tries, and that he want­ed to con­cen­trate on future rela­tions rather than cen­turies-old issues. Mrs Simpson Miller said while she was “aware of the obvi­ous sen­si­tiv­i­ties”, Jamaica was “involved in a process under the aus­pices of the Caribbean Community [Caricom] to engage the UK on the mat­ter”. During Mr Cameron’s speech, a small group of pro­test­ers with plac­ards that read “repa­ra­tions now” gath­ered out­side parliament.

For more than 200 years Britain was at the heart of a lucra­tive transat­lantic trade in mil­lions of enslaved Africans. According to ship records it is esti­mat­ed about 12.5 mil­lion peo­ple were trans­port­ed as slaves from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean — to work in often bru­tal con­di­tions on plan­ta­tions — from the 16^th cen­tu­ry until the trade was banned in 1807. In 1833, Britain eman­ci­pat­ed its enslaved peo­ple and raised the equiv­a­lent of £17bn in com­pen­sa­tion mon­ey to be paid to 46,000 of Britain’s slave-own­ers for “loss of human prop­er­ty”. University College London has com­piled a data­base of those com­pen­sat­ed. Among those list­ed is General Sir James Duff, who it is claimed is a first cousin six times removed of David Cameron. He was award­ed com­pen­sa­tion worth around £3 mil­lion in today’s terms. Others who received com­pen­sa­tion include the ances­tors of nov­el­ists George Orwell and Graham Greene, as well as dis­tant rel­a­tives of Arts Council chair­man Sir Peter Bazalgette and celebri­ty chef Ainsley Harriott.

The issue of for­mer slave-own­ing nations com­pen­sat­ing for­mer colonies is a con­tentious one in the Caribbean, where nation­al com­mis­sions have cal­cu­lat­ed the sums could run into tril­lions of dol­lars. One sug­ges­tion has been that the mon­ey could be pro­vid­ed in the form of debt relief. BBC News cor­re­spon­dent Elaine Dunkley, who spe­cialis­es in African Caribbean social affairs, said: “There real­ly has been an issue with repa­ra­tion in Jamaica, we can’t say that the recep­tion there [to Mr Cameron’s vis­it] has been uni­ver­sal­ly warm. “Correcting the wrongs of the past is not only cost­ly but com­pli­cat­ed and David Cameron has said that he does­n’t feel repa­ra­tion is the way for­ward in this case.” Mrs Simpson Miller told the United Nations in 2013 there should be “an inter­na­tion­al dis­cus­sion in a non-con­fronta­tion­al man­ner” and its par­lia­ment had passed a motion back­ing repa­ra­tions. One Jamaican MP, Mike Henry, threat­ened to boy­cott Mr Cameron’s speech at the coun­try’s par­lia­ment if he did not engage on the issue.

Campaigners also called on Mr Cameron to make a per­son­al apol­o­gy, say­ing one of his own ances­tors was paid com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of his slaves in 1834. Bert Samuels, a mem­ber of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, told Television Jamaica “he needs to atone, to apol­o­gise per­son­al­ly and on behalf of his coun­try”. Sir Hilary Beckles, chair­man of Caricom’s repa­ra­tions com­mis­sion, wrote in an open let­ter in the Jamaica Observer that the UK must “play its part in clean­ing up this mon­u­men­tal mess of Empire”. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who lived in Jamaica for two years in his youth, said that, as prime min­is­ter, he would be ready to apol­o­gise for the slave trade. Speaking at Labour’s annu­al con­fer­ence in Brighton, Mr Corbyn said it was “the most bru­tal part of our his­to­ry and the his­to­ry of Jamaica”.

During his two-day vis­it, Mr Cameron revealed the UK will spend £25m on build­ing a prison in Jamaica so that for­eign crim­i­nals in the UK can be sent home to serve sen­tences in the Caribbean. More than 600 Jamaican nation­als are in UK jails but can­not be deport­ed because of Jamaica’s poor prison con­di­tions. Officials say the for­eign aid-fund­ed deal could save tax­pay­ers £10m a year when trans­fers begin in 2020. The Howard League for Penal Reform crit­i­cised the plan, say­ing it was “the wrong use of for­eign aid” and would fail to address the real issue of over­crowd­ing in British prisons.See sto­ry here : David Cameron rules out slav­ery repa­ra­tion dur­ing Jamaica visit

Russia has begun car­ry­ing out airstrikes in Syria against oppo­nents of President Bashar al-Assad.

The strikes report­ed­ly hit rebel-con­trolled areas of Homs and Hama provinces, caus­ing casu­al­ties. The US says it was informed an hour before they took place. Russian defence offi­cials say air­craft car­ried out about 20 mis­sions tar­get­ing Islamic State, but US offi­cials said that so far they did not appear to be tar­get­ing IS-held territory.

Syria’s civ­il war has raged for four years, with an array of armed groups fight­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment. The US and its allies have insist­ed that President Assad should leave office, while Russia has backed its ally remain­ing in pow­er. The upper house of the Russian par­lia­ment ear­li­er grant­ed President Vladimir Putin per­mis­sion to deploy the Russian air force in Syria.

The Russian defence min­istry said the coun­try’s air force had tar­get­ed IS mil­i­tary equip­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion facil­i­ties, arms depots, ammu­ni­tion and fuel sup­plies — and did not hit civil­ian infra­struc­ture or areas nearby.

Syrian oppo­si­tion activists said Russian war­planes had hit towns includ­ing Zafaraneh, Rastan and Talbiseh, result­ing in the deaths of 36 peo­ple, a num­ber of them chil­dren. None of the areas tar­get­ed were con­trolled by IS, activists said. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States was pre­pared to wel­come Russian mil­i­tary action in Syria — but only as long as it was direct­ed against IS and al-Qaeda-linked groups. Speaking at the United Nations Security Council, Mr Kerry said the US would have “grave con­cerns” if Russia con­duct­ed strikes against oth­er groups. He said the US-led coali­tion against IS would “dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate our efforts” and that the US was pre­pared to hold talks with Russia about avoid­ing acci­den­tal con­flicts between the two air strike cam­paigns “as ear­ly as possible”.

Analysis: Jonathan Marcus, defence and diplomatic correspondent

Russia’s deci­sion to inter­vene with its air pow­er great­ly com­pli­cates the Syrian cri­sis while prob­a­bly offer­ing lit­tle addi­tion­al chance of a diplo­mat­ic res­o­lu­tion. Russian sources indi­cate that Sukhoi Su-24 war­planes were involved, oper­at­ing out of an air­base near Latakia. There are seri­ous ques­tions about who exact­ly the Russian air­craft are tar­get­ing. US offi­cials believe that the ini­tial Russian strikes are not in IS-held ter­ri­to­ry, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Russian air pow­er is being utilised more in the form of close air sup­port for Syrian gov­ern­ment forces against the mul­ti­ple ene­mies of the Assad régime. Of course, many of these ene­mies are sup­port­ed by the West’s Arab allies or Turkey. The warn­ing time giv­en by the Russians to the Americans announc­ing the start of their oper­a­tions may also raise some eye­brows, sug­gest­ing that much more detailed co-ordi­na­tion may be need­ed in future to avoid inci­dents in Syrian airspace.

In a tele­vised address, Mr Putin said the air strikes were tar­get­ing Islamist mil­i­tants — includ­ing Russian cit­i­zens — who have tak­en over large parts of Syria and Iraq. “If they [mil­i­tants] suc­ceed in Syria, they will return to their home coun­try, and they will come to Russia, too,” he said. He added that Russia was not going to send ground troops to Syria, and that its role in Syrian army oper­a­tions would be limited.

“We cer­tain­ly are not going to plunge head-on into this con­flict… we will be sup­port­ing the Syrian army pure­ly in its legit­i­mate fight with ter­ror­ist groups.” Mr Putin also said he expect­ed President Assad to talk with the Syrian oppo­si­tion about a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment, but clar­i­fied that he was refer­ring to what he described as “healthy” oppo­si­tion groups. A US defence offi­cial said: “A Russian offi­cial in Baghdad this morn­ing informed US embassy per­son­nel that Russian mil­i­tary air­craft would begin fly­ing anti-Isil [IS] mis­sions today over Syria. He fur­ther request­ed that US air­craft avoid Syrian air­space dur­ing these mis­sions.” US state depart­ment spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “The US-led coali­tion will con­tin­ue to fly mis­sions over Iraq and Syria as planned and in sup­port of our inter­na­tion­al mis­sion to degrade and destroy Isil [IS].”

Syria’s civil war

What’s the human cost?

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a mil­lion injured in four-and-a-half years of armed con­flict, which began with anti-gov­ern­ment protests before esca­lat­ing into a full-scale civ­il war.

And the survivors?

More than 11 mil­lion oth­ers have been forced from their homes, four mil­lion of them abroad, as forces loy­al to President Assad and those opposed to his rule bat­tle each oth­er — as well as jihadist mil­i­tants from IS and oth­er groups. Growing num­bers of refugees are going to Europe.

How has the world reacted?

Regional and world pow­ers have also been drawn into the con­flict. Iran and Russia, along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah move­ment, are prop­ping up the Alawite-led gov­ern­ment. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are back­ing the Sunni-dom­i­nat­ed oppo­si­tion, along with the US, UK and France.
See sto­ry here : http://​www​.bbc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​-​m​i​d​d​l​e​-​e​a​s​t​-​3​4​3​9​9​164