Five men on Friday were sentenced in Azerbaijan for up to 13 years in prison for beating to death a journalist who had criticised an Azeri football team player on Facebook.
Court in the capital Baku found the men “guilty of inflicting serious bodily harm that caused the death” of journalist Rasim Aliyev, judge Eldar Ismayilov said in the courtroom.
The men were sentenced to prison terms ranging from nine to 13 years.
Aliyev, a 30-year-old photo and video journalist for a number of online publications, died in hospital in August last year after being beaten by a group of men who had contacted him over his Facebook post about a heated football match between teams from Cyprus and Azerbaijan.
Aliyev had criticised the behaviour of the Azeri team Gabala’s striker Javid Huseynov who waved a Turkish flag after the match with Cypriot team Apollon Limassol and allegedly made an offensive gesture at a journalist.
Aliyev wrote that Huseynov “did not know how to behave” and should not play in matches in Europe.
Aliyev told the Turan agency before his death that he had received insulting comments about the post.
He said he was contacted by telephone by a man claiming to be a cousin of the player. After initially abusing him, the man phoned him back in a conciliatory tone and invited him to drink tea.
“I came out alone. There were five or six of them and they immediately threw themselves at me and started beating me up,” Aliyev told the agency.
He later died in intensive care after his condition worsened and he underwent an emergency operation.
Mango Tree Dispute Kills 2 People, 40 Houses Burnt In Edo
At least two people have been killed and 40 houses burnt down after an inter communal clash broke out in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of Edo State.
The communities, the Uneme-Ekpedo and Bekuma-Okpameri communities clashed on Wednesday after some members quarrelled over a mango tree.
It was learnt that some people from Uneme-Ekpedo community went into a bush to pluck mangoes, but one of them was killed by youths from Bekuma-Okpameri community, who claimed the mango tree belonged to them.
Angered by the killing, youths from Uneme-Ekpedo reportedly mobilized and attacked Bekuma-Okpameri and set houses ablaze. The palace of the traditional ruler of Bekuma-Okpameri, HRH Moses Alabi, is among houses torched by the rampaging youths.
Many residents of Bekuma-Okpameri were said to be camping Lampese, a neighbouring village, as there community has been completely sacked.
Edo State Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, confirmed the incident, saying the Police has begun investigation into the tragedy.
Thanks for reading.
Uganda attempts to treat the malignant disease of inequality
audi Luganga Musisi can hardly remember when his family last had breakfast. “We care more about lunch and supper,” says the father of six. “Having breakfast means we won’t have enough money for lunch and supper.”
Musisi, 52, lives in Kibbe zone, a sprawling slum in the Kalerwe suburb in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. His home, which he rents for 60,000 shillings (£12.50) a month, squats beside pools of stagnant rainwater – a world away from the well-watered, emerald-green lawns of the upmarket suburb of Kololo, just across town. Stones hold down the corrugated roof, and the walls are cracked. A sack of sand sits in the doorway to keep any running water out.
Like tens of thousands of others in Kampala, Musisi, a casual worker, has not benefited from Uganda’s steady economic growth, which has averaged above 6% since 2002 (pdf). He has no piped water, or sanitation. His family share a pit latrine with five other households.
Across Uganda, at least 13.8 million people (pdf) use unsanitary or shared latrines. More than 3.2 million people have no toilet at all. Open defecation contaminates drinking water sources and can spread cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid. Those living in rural areas are most at risk – eight out of 10 people in villages live without improved drinking water sources.
For Musisi, poor sanitation has a real, and costly, impact on his life. Every month, he spends 80,000 shillings on medicines, which sometimes pushes him into debt – his average monthly income is 120,000 shillings.
“Every month, we have a [family] member who has malaria or another infection. That’s what disturbs us here.”
Nearly 23% of households spend more than 10% of their total household income on healthcare. About 4.3% of Ugandans are impoverished annually due to out-of-pocket health payments.
Parliament is due to debate a bill to pave the way for legislation to introduce national social health insurance, as a first step towards universal healthcare. The bill has been around since 2007 but has been held up by disagreements between government and employers on how to fund it. Fewer than 1% of Ugandans (pdf) have insurance cover.
Achieving universal healthcare is a specific target in the sustainable development goals, a blueprint for development for the next 15 years that was adopted by UN member states in September. However, for millions of people like Musisi, economic and social inequalities are fundamental threats to health that must be tackled as well.
Sir Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity at University College London and winner of the Prince Mahidol award in public health last year, researches social and economic disadvantages and how they create health inequalities between and within countries.
He says: “Inequality brings with it other social evils like ill health and crime. It damages health. Absolute inequality means disempowerment of a severe kind and not being able to afford food and shelter. Our response to this inequality in health is working towards universal health coverage.
“Why treat people and send them back to the same conditions that made them sick? We need action on the social determinants of ill health.”
Last September, 267 leading economists signed a declaration calling for universal healthcare as an essential pillar of development.
For Marmot, this is just one part of the puzzle. Conditions for good health must also exist at home. “Increasingly, the lower you are in the social hierarchy, the [more the] health of the poor suffers,” he says.
His words find a ready echo among some health professionals in Uganda.
“Addressing conditions at home is the way to go,” says Dr Julius Bamwine, health officer for the western district of Ibanda. “We still need [working] health facilities. But a sizeable public budget should go into prevention. People must know that drinking contaminated water makes them sick.”
Robinah Kaitiritimba, director of the Uganda National Health Consumers’ Organisation, says primary healthcare should be the main focus.
“Even when we don’t have a lot of money, we can use information [and] education to tell people how to avoid some diseases. Prevention is the best and cheapest,” she says. “At least 70% of hospital admissions in Uganda are related to malaria but if people slept under treated mosquito nets, these would be drastically cut.”
Others argue that a functioning, affordable health system is just as crucial as improving conditions at home.
For Musisi, improving living conditions is a critical first step. “If government can help us and build for us better houses, it would be the start of a new life for me. You can see the life we live here.” Thanks for reading.
When will the UN be held to account for failing to protect civilians?
This month, the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights revealed the massive scale of abuse against civilians in South Sudan last year. Its report is unflinching in describing rape, killing and torture – all part of what it calls a “scorched earth policy” against civilians by government forces. Quite rightly, it suggests mechanisms that should be instigated to hold perpetrators of these crimes to account. However, the report fails to raise questions about the UN’s own accountability in situations such as these.
The UN mission in South Sudan (Unmiss) is made up of 12,500 peacekeepers under a Chapter VII mandate to protect civilians. As part of this mandate, Unmiss peacekeepers are supposed to “address violence against women and girls as a tool of warfare”, among other requirements to protect civilians under threat of physical violence.
While the UN provides shelter to about 200,000 people in their protection of civilians (POC) sites, the recent report is surely testament to the failure, at least in part, of this mandate, cataloguing horrific abuses against thousands of civilians.
This report comes as Unmiss is already investigating fighting and deaths that took place in their Malakal POC base in February, and follows claims by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) of a “complete and utter protection failure” in Unity state.
In both incidents, Unmiss is accused of failing to react to what is described as systematic targeting of civilians. In a letter to the Guardian rebutting the MSF allegations, the UN special representative and head of Unmiss, Ellen Margrethe Løj, explained the trying circumstances and undoubted challenges that the UN – and all humanitarian operators – face in South Sudan.
However, that is the job and that is the purpose of peacekeeping operations, so at what point is a mission aimed at protecting civilians classified as a failure?
The key missing element here is the lack of a culture of accountability. The UN is grappling with its internal mechanisms for holding peacekeepers accused of sexual abuse to account. Last week, a UN security council resolution committed its members to do just that.
In Central African Republic (CAR), allegations of sexual abuse by French and UN troops continue to be made, with the UN high commissioner on human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, blaming a culture of impunity for the proliferation of cases.
Indeed in CAR it was the whistleblower, Anders Kompass, who faced an investigation (and subsequent exoneration) while no one has been arrested in connection with the abuse allegations themselves.
Allegations such as these are not new, and similar claims have been made of various peacekeeping missions over the past 20 years. Therefore whether the new resolution goes beyond platitudes to taking demonstrable action against individuals who commit sexual abuses − as well as against member states that fail to prosecute their peacekeeping troops − will be a further indication of the UN’s ability to hold itself to account credibly.
As an unelected yet influential body, the UN has always been in danger of lacking legitimacy with those it is meant to serve. Member states must drive processes of accountability, yet they will also be the ones who are found to be culpable in some cases. Therein lies the problem.
It should be a priority for the UN and its member states to develop and instigate robust accountability measures, which can serve both to vindicate and challenge their actions and programmes as required. Rather than appearing to evade accountability in a smokescreen of bureaucracy and fragmented responsibility, the UN needs to find a way to address either failures by its own senior personnel to do their job effectively or − a more likely but concerning reality − serious systematic failures within the UN’s approach to peacekeeping.
If peacekeeping operations and the budget continue to grow, as they did last year, then the need for more exacting accountability mechanisms becomes ever more acute.
Peacekeepers have an important role to play and this month’s report on South Sudan serves as a sad reminder of the importance of ensuring that these operations fulfil their Chapter VII mandates.
Government forces and warring factions who have committed these terrible crimes must be held to account, but there is also a need to examine the prevailing conditions under which the crimes were allowed to happen.
Without accountability the UN will lose legitimacy, peacekeeping operations will not learn from previous failures and the vicious cycle that impunity facilitates will continue. Thanks for reading.
Wind power: senators want moratorium on turbines until health studies conclude
Two members of a Senate inquiry into the health effects of wind farms – including a Coalition backbencher – have called for a moratorium on building new turbines until two separate medical studies conclude.
On Tuesday, the National Health and Medical Research Council announced that it would allocate $3.3m for two university studies on whether noise emitted from wind turbines, known as infrasound, affected health, sleep and mood.
The independent senator John Madigan on Wednesday called for all projects to be put on hold as a “precaution”.
“We have a new industry operating infrastructure that some people say is making them sick,” he said. “There is insufficient research of the type needed to determine the validity of these claims.”
A Coalition senator, Chris Back, was part of a Senate inquiry into the effects of wind turbines. He supported Madigan’s call for a moratorium.
“This research is very important as the only scientific pilot study conducted in Australia measuring the effects of vibration, low-frequency noise and infrasound has indicated that there are health problems that requires further investigation,” he said.
“This important research will provide the affected communities with information regarding health and safety of living nearby to industrial size wind turbines. It is well known that industrial noise effects health.”
Putting money into investigating possible health effects of infrasound was consistent with previous National Health and Medical Research Council recommendations, said the environment minister, Greg Hunt.
“Their preliminary finding was they had no evidence of health effects but they also recommended there should be further study and investigations,” Hunt said. “So we are following the advice of the National Health and Medical Research Council.”
The issue was “of concern to a lot of people”, Malcolm Turnbull said.
“A reasonable exercise for the government is to ... investigate the matter,” the prime minister told reporters.
When asked if he was putting money to a syndrome that had already been disproved, Turnbull answered: “If the conclusion is as you suspect it will be, that will serve to allay lot of anxiety and that’s a very important thing to do.”
A Senate inquiry into turbines handed down its report in August. It recommended national standards on the amount of noise emitted be put into place and that the government put a five-year cap on renewable energy certificates.
Labor said the recommendations were “reckless, ridiculous and irresponsible”.
Turnbull and Hunt on Wednesday announced the formation of a $1bn clean energy fund aimed at creating innovative renewables and then commercialising the new technology.
John Cleese may sue Australian theatre company over Faulty Towers rip-off
John Cleese is considering pursuing legal action against an Australian theatre company’s “brazen, utterly shameless” rip-off of his television series Fawlty Towers, from which it has been profiting for decades.
The Australian company Interactive Theatre International has staged its Faulty Towers the Dining Experience in London, most cities in Australia and other destinations around the world since 1997.
Upcoming dates include Dubai, Singapore and Melbourne from 12-17 April for the city’s international comedy festival, with performances fetching for close to $100 a head for the three-course meal and two-hour interactive show.
Tickets for its residency at the Amba Hotel Charing Cross in London range from £47 (A$87) to £64 (A$119).
According to Cleese, Interactive Theatre International and its associated entities has not sought permission from him or his Fawlty Towers cowriter Connie Booth to use the characters, situations and names associated with the show.
Though he has known of the stage show’s existence for a year, he said on Twitter on Wednesday he had “no idea” of its “astonishing financial success”.
“Seems they thought that by not asking, and by changing the ‘w’ to a u’, they’d be in the clear! Hilarious,” he tweeted.
In response to another user’s comment that the company’s behaviour was “fucking shocking”, Cleese said: “That’s the phrasing I’m hoping to use in Court”.
Cleese quoted another Twitter user’s defence of the “excellent” theatre show, adding “I never heard anything was wrong with the show.
“After all, they start with a lot of advantages: the basic concept ... 40 years of unpaid publicity, the characters’ personalities, the characters’ names, the characters’ stress, the characters’ dialogue ... twelve funny episodes to which they make reference, plus all the catch-phrases, without the need to pay Connie Booth and me a single cent.”
A representative for Interactive Theatre International refused to comment to Guardian Australia but said its UK public relations company would send through a statement.
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Cleese told Fairfax from New Zealand on Wednesday that Interactive Theatre International has been operating for 20 years “without paying us a penny, they could well owe us a very significant amount”.
“They didn’t ask our permission and we didn’t know it was happening on this scale. If little groups are making some money that’s not a problem, but this is entirely different.”
Faulty Towers the Dining Experience bills itself as an “internationally acclaimed ... loving tribute to the BBC’s best-loved sitcom”.
The “loving tribute” line is reiterated in a disclaimer, which clarifies Cleese and Booth’s roles as the writers of the series and adds: “Their original TV scripts are not used in Faulty Towers the Dining Experience.”
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Nine teams of cast work from England and Australia and tour around 20 countries a year; the show’s six-nights-a-week residency at the Amba Hotel Charing Cross is also in its fourth year in London’s West End.
In a statement to Fairfax Media, Alison Pollard-Mansergh, founder and artistic director of Interactive Theatre International, rejected Cleese’s comments as “misleading and inaccurate”.
The stage version of Cleese’s show, Fawlty Towers Live, will make its world premiere in Sydney in August.
Cleese told Fairfax he was considering pursuing legal action against Interactive Theatre International’s iteration before its debut.
“Now that Fawlty Towers is about to happen as a proper stage show and producers are investing money in what is a risky enterprise, we certainly don’t want other shows out there confusing people,” he said.
“These people are completely brazen, utterly shameless. The awful thing about our society is that shameless people get away with things – look at [Donald] Trump.
“They take our concepts, they take our characters, they take our characters’ names and then they change the ‘w’ to a ‘u’ and say it’s got nothing to do with our show.”
He remarked on the irony of Interactive Theatre International’s “aggressive” attempts to protect the copyright of its stage show: “It’s absolutely wonderful!”. Thanks for reading.
Hiroshima survivor urges Obama to visit site of world's first atomic bombing
Barack Obama should visit Hiroshima when Japan hosts the G7 leaders’ summit in May to see for himself the human misery inflicted by nuclear weapons, according to a survivor of the atomic bombing of the city 70 years ago.
“I hope Obama and other G7 leaders come here and change their minds about possessing nuclear weapons,” said Keiko Ogura, who was an eight-year-old schoolgirl when the bomb flattened her hometown on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing 140,000 people.
Obama, who this week made a historic visit to Cuba, spoke of his desire for a nuclear-free world during a speech in Prague in 2009, but has not been to Hiroshima on any of his three visits to Japan as president.
Speculation that he will pay tribute to victims and survivors of the bombing, months before his time in office ends, rose on Wednesday after reports that the White House was looking into the possibility of arranging a visit, which would be the first by a sitting US president.
Japanese media quoted Rose Gottemoeller, the US undersecretary for arms control, as telling reporters in Washington that the White House was “considering” an Obama trip to the city. The final decision on the timing and nature of any visit would be the president’s, Kyodo News quoted Gottemoeller as saying.
Ogura, now 78, survived because her father, convinced something bad would happen, told her to skip school on the day of the attack. Their home was just outside the 2km radius from ground zero where most of the casualties and damage occurred.
“President Obama should come here and see for himself,” she said. “He and other leaders would realise that nuclear weapons are not about making allies and enemies, but about joining hands and fighting this evil together.
“We don’t want to tell world leaders what to think, or make them apologise. They should just view it as an opportunity to lead the world in the right direction, because only they have the power to do that.”
G7 leaders will meet in Ise-Shima in central Japan in late May; early next month, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, will be among the foreign ministers meeting in Hiroshima.
The mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, and Tomihisa Taue, his counterpart in Nagasaki, visited the US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, in early 2014 to request Obama’s presence at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the attack later that year, but did not insist that he issue an apology.
“That made me so angry,” said Yuki Tanaka, a retired professor at Hiroshima City University and an authority on the city’s history.
“If the mayors are sincere about demanding that the US abolish nuclear weapons, they also have to make the US recognise that Hiroshima was a crime against humanity and demand an apology. You can’t separate one issue from the other.”
Obama said during a visit to Japan in late 2009 that he would be “honoured” to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where 80,000 people died after it was bombed on 9 August 1945. “I certainly would be honoured – it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future,” Obama said.
But a secret US cable released by WikiLeaks revealed that before Obama’s visit to the country, Japan had discouraged the White House from arranging for him to go to Hiroshima, acknowledging that a presidential apology for the attack was a “non-starter”.
The cable, dated 3 September 2009 and sent to the then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, quoted Japan’s then vice-foreign minister, Mitoji Yabunaka, as saying that both countries “should temper the public’s expectations” for a stop in Hiroshima.
“While a simple visit to Hiroshima without fanfare is sufficiently symbolic to convey the right message, it is premature to include such program in the November visit,” Yabunaka was quoted as saying.
The only western leader to have visited Hiroshima while in office is Kevin Rudd, who laid a wreath at the peace park cenotaph in 2008 when he was still Australian prime minister.
Jimmy Carter visited the atomic bomb memorial in Hiroshima in 1984, after he had left office, but no sitting US president has ever visited the city. The highest-ranking US official to visit the site is Nancy Pelosi, the then House speaker, in 2008. Ambassador Kennedy attended the 70th anniversary commemorations last year.
Tanaka believes the prospects for an Obama visit remain slim given the criticism that even a simple gesture, such as laying a wreath, at the cenotaph would generate at home, particularly in an election year.
“It’s not impossible, but I doubt it,” Tanaka said, “for the simple reason that most Americans believe that the US was right to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and that it ended the war.
“Part of the problem is that Japan is reluctant to apologise for its own wartime atrocities, which makes it more difficult to demand an apology from someone else.”
Mayor Matsui would not be drawn on the prospects of a visit by Obama or Kerry to the Hiroshima peace park, whose cenotaph contains the names of every person to have died in connection to the bombing.
But he said: “If they prayed before the cenotaph, they would be demonstrating a commitment [to abolishing nuclear weapons], and that would be good for us.
“An Obama visit would certainly carry a lot of weight.” Thanks for reading.
