GENEVA – More than three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths occur in sub- Saharan Africa and South Africa is now officially the country with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world, a new UN report said Wednesday.
Improved monitoring of the pandemic has led the U.N. to revise its estimates, particularly in Southern Africa and Asia, resulting in a major revision in the assessment of India’s epidemic, the country previously thought to be worst-hit.
“South Africa is the country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world,” according to the UNAIDS annual report on the epidemic for 2007.
While the report didn’t give a figure, the South African government currently estimates some 5.5 million of the country’s 48 million population are living with the disease.
While AIDS continued to be the leading cause of death in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa was the worst affected region.
“More than two out of three (68%) adults and nearly 90% of children infected with HIV live in this region, and more than three in four (76%) AIDS deaths in 2007 occurred there, illustrating the unmet need for antiretroviral treatment in Africa.”
Women in the region bear the brunt of the disease.
“Unlike other regions, the majority of people (61%) living with HIV in sub- Saharan Africa are women,” the report found.
“It is estimated that 1.7 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2007, bringing to 22.5 million the total number of people living with the virus” that causes AIDS.
Southern Africa was the worst affected in the region with national adult HIV prevalence over 15% in eight countries.
“While there is evidence of a significant decline in the national HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe, the epidemics in most of the rest of the subregion have either reached or are approaching a plateau.”
The U.N. data showed that adult HIV prevalence was either stable or has started to decline in many parts of Africa.
According to the report, Kenya and Zimbabwe were some of the countries where the slowing trend of new infections was most evident, with similar shifts in Burkino Faso, Ivory Coast and Mali.
Worldwide, new infections of AIDS were leveling off, and of the 2.5 million people newly infected overall, more than half come from sub-Saharan Africa.
Forbes magazine has declared Beyonce Knowles and hubby Jay-Z as Hollywood’s Top-Earning Couple, with a total earnings of 162 million dollars between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008, defeating star couple Will Smith and his actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith with a shared wealth of 85 million dollars.
Third on the list are the stylish Beckhams, with an estimated earnings of 58 million dollars followed by Country music couple, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill with a collective wealth of 35 million dollars between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008, reports Fox News.
Surprisingly, fifth on the spot are the Hollywood power couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (/tag/brad%20pitt) who banked 34 million dollars together. Film producer and director Judd Apatow and his actress wife Leslie Mann also made it to the list at No. 6 with a total income of 30 million dollars.
Seventh on the list are perched Singer Gwen Stefani and husband Gavin Rossdale, with an earnings of 28 million dollars. Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are at No. 8, with 3 million dollar less, followed by Eva Longoria and Tony Parker, both of whom earn 22.5 million dollars.
Finally tenth on the list are Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, with a collective wealth of 22 million dollars. “Naturally, powerful people tend to gravitate toward other powerful people,” clinical psychologist and celebrity researcher Jim Houran tells Forbes.com.
The top 10 power couple are :
1 Beyonce Knowles, Jay-Z
2 Will, Jada Pinkett Smith
3 David and Victoria Beckham
4 Tim McGraw, Faith Hill
5 Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie
6 Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann
7 Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale
8 Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban
9 Eva Longoria, Tony Parker
10 Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart
Many foreigners who have come to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and taken part in various road races including the Great Ethiopian Run, an annual international 10km road race, will tell you that it is not just any other race.
Apart from the unique atmosphere created by the mass participation field, which are all clad in the same-coloured T-shirt, the city, which is located at 2400m above sea level, does make both training and running races 5km and upwards a very difficult endurance exercise.
There is little surprise therefore that the winners of the men’s and women’s races in the last seven years of Africa’s largest road race have all been Ethiopian. In fact, Kenyans Nathan Naibei (men’s race in 2005) and Caroline Chepkurui (women’s race in 2006) are the only non-Ethiopians to have earned a top three finish.
This year’s field will again feature a host of young Ethiopian runners hungry to launch themselves onto the international stage and preserve Ethiopian dominance of the race.
Merga, Gebremariam against Farah and Co. – Men’s race
The elite men’s field sees the return of former champions Gebregziabher Gebremariam (2002) and Deriba Merga (2007), a host of young Ethiopians, and perhaps the strongest foreign challenge in the history of the race.
In 2002, Gebremariam, who was coming off his final junior year, beat another then little-known Kenenisa Bekele and Sileshi Sihine in one of the most exciting races in the history of the Great Ethiopian Run. That performance came on the back of a World junior cross country title in Lausanne, Switzerland and a World junior 10,000m title in Kingston, Jamaica.
While his conquests have gone on to collect four Olympic, 10 world championship, and many other major championship medals between them, Gebremariam’s career hasn’t quite lived up to expectation with double silver in the 2004 World Cross Country Championships and an African 10,000m title earlier this year on home soil being his better-known achievements in a five-year senior career.
However, Gebremariam has already proven that he is a force to be reckoned on the domestic circuit with and his three-year experience – he also finished second in 2003, but failed to finish in the top ten in 2001 – could be an advantage against his relatively-younger compatriots.
Like Gebremariam, Deriba Merga, who was the winner in 2006, makes a return to the Great Ethiopian Run. Since his run-away victory two years ago, Merga added an All-African Games half marathon title in 2007; finished fourth in the 2007 World Half Marathon Championships; and was just beaten out of a podium finish in the 2008 Beijing Olympics Marathon by compatriot Tsegaye Kebede.
But Merga is an athlete on form having won the 2008 Aircom New Delhi Half Marathon in India in 59:16, a PB. He will be using the 10km in Addis Ababa as a speed test for a spring Marathon.
Other top Ethiopian challengers include Ayele Abshiro, who beat Kenenisa Bekele at the Seven Hills 15km in Njimegen last Sunday; 2006 runner-up Tadesse Tola; Lille Half Marathon winner Tilahun Mnashu; 2008 Seoul Marathon winner Solomon Molla and his runner-up Chala Lemi; and African 10,000m bronze medallist Eshetu Wondimu.
Unlike previous years, there is no shortage of foreign challengers to the Ethiopian dominance in the Great Ethiopian Run. Leading the foreign challenge is Britain’s European Cross Country Champion Mo Farah. The 26-year old Somali-born runner has given himself the best chance of countering the Ethiopian challenge by spending around six weeks in Addis Ababa to prepare for the race.
“My training is going well,” remarked Britain’s number one distance runner. “Being in Ethiopia among the world’s best runners has been a big experience for me. I am looking forward to competing on Sunday.”
He will be joined by training partners – Swedish steeplechaser Mustafa Mohammed, Frenchman Jean-Marc Leandro – while the presence of Kenyan duo of Gilbert Yego and Raymond Tanui will also make the race another battle between Ethiopia and Kenya.
Tufa the overwhelming favourite in women’s contest
Unlike the competitive men’s field, the women’s field is expected to be dominated by All-African 10,000m champion Mestawet Tufa who is in the form of her life after missing the World 15km record in Njimegen last weekend by just two seconds.
Her strongest challenge is expected to come from Asselefech Mergia, who finished third in last year’s race, but won the New Delhi Half Marathon two weeks ago. Atsede Habtamu, who finished second in last year’s New Delhi Half Marathon and is the second fastest Ethiopian over the Half Marathon, will also be a factor, while last year’s winner Wude Ayalew is another top name in the field.
The foreign challenge comes from the Kenyan duo of Valentine Kipketer and Joyce Kandia.
Kluft, once again, leads VIP Guest List
Three-time world Heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft is back in Ethiopia as a VIP Guest which includes 1987 world 110m silver medalist John Regis, who is now a race director for the British Grand Prix in London (Crystal Palace) and Peter Connerton, race director for the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon, which of course will be Great Ethiopian Run Race Director Haile Gebrselassie’s next full marathon race in January 2009.
CAIRO, EGYPT (AFP) – EGYPTIAN police have rounded up hundreds of teenage boys in Cairo in a day-long crackdown on sexual harassment.
“We have arrested a large number of boys who were flirting with girls,” Cairo’s police director Faruq Lashin said.
About 400 teenagers, aged between 15 and 17, were arrested on Wednesday and will be brought before a judge, he said.
Police targeted teenagers in front of schools, universities and along the Nile’s banks, he said.
The teenagers were expected to be fined, a police official said.
Women’s rights groups in Egypt have long campaigned against sexual harassment and assault in Cairo, accusing police of ignoring the phenomenon.
On Monday, a Cairo court jailed a teenager for one year for sexually assaulting two women.
Another teenager, a 17 year old, is facing trial on the same charge.
At least 34 men were arrested after they allegedly assaulted women in an affluent Cairo neighbourhood during a Muslim holiday in January.
Such convictions are relatively rare in Egypt, which does not have a law defining sexual harassment, but a court in October sentenced a man to three years in jail for groping a woman.
Women’s rights activists welcomed that ruling and said it was unprecedented in Egypt.
The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) issued a survey this summer saying 83 per cent of Egyptian women and 98 per cent of foreign women in Egypt had experienced sexual harassment.
The study said only 12 per cent of the 2500 women who reported cases of sexual harassment to ECWR went to the police with their complaint.
KIGALI, RWANDA (AFP) — Rwanda is poised to issue indictments and arrest warrants against 23 French military and political officials over their suspected role in the country’s 1994 genocide, judicial sources said Tuesday.
Indictments against France’s late president Francois Mitterrand and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin among others would mark a new step in the judicial escalation between the two countries.
The threat of warrants against top French officials — several of whom are still active — came as hundreds demonstrated in Kigali against the arrest by Germany, acting on a French warrant, of a top aide to the Rwandan president.
“The indictments are being finalised, the arrest warrants can be issued any time from now,” a senior Rwandan justice official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Rwandan prosecutors had spent the past three months examining a 500-page report drafted by a special commission tasked with probing France’s role in the genocide and released on August 5 by the justice ministry.
It names former French prime minister Edouard Balladur, former foreign minister Alain Juppe and then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, among 13 French politicians accused of playing a role in the massacres.
Dominique de Villepin, who was then Juppe’s top aide and later became prime minister, was also among those listed in the Rwandan report.
It also names 20 military officials, involved notably in Operation Turquoise, a 1994 French military mission to Rwanda which Kigali charges was used to assist Hutu genocide perpetrators.
The justice official speaking to AFP Tuesday did not specify who the 23 officials facing indictment were.
The 1994 genocide in the central African nation left some 800,000 people dead — mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus — according to the United Nations.
The report alleges that France was aware of preparations for the genocide, contributed to planning and actively took part in the massacres.
France, which has admitted to making “mistakes” in Rwanda but denied any direct responsibility for the massacres, had called the report “unacceptable”.
The arrest in Frankfurt on Sunday of Rose Kabuye, Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s chief of protocol, had sparked the ire of the Rwanda’s authorities, who called for a series of protests.
State-run Radio Rwanda said Kagame visited Kabuye in detention and said she was “fine and that she was psychologically prepared to take on this injustice.”
On Monday, several thousands demonstrators marched to the German embassy in Kigali and the offices of the Deutsche Welle, Germany’s national broadcaster.
On Tuesday, around a thousand youths demonstrated in front of the French cultural centre in Kigali, which has been closed since Rwanda broke diplomatic ties with France in November 2006.
Officials have said that a demonstration of women could also take place on Wednesday.
French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued warrants in 2006 against nine members of Kagame’s entourage suspected of having a hand in the attack that brought down then Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane in 1994.
The assassination of the Hutu president is widely seen as the spark that set the divided country ablaze and triggered the genocide.
Kagame’s Tutsi regime has retorted that France could be largely blamed for the massacres and complained that Paris and other European capitals were seeking to prosecute the victims rather than the perpetrators.
Felicien Kabuga, one of the most wanted men in Africa, is accused of being one of the genocide’s main financiers. After hiding in Kenya for years, he is thought to have been moving between several European countries in recent years.
We have all read about the recent strong performance of the US dollar and the Japanese Yen on Forex exchanges. Forex traders and investors are flocking to these two currencies to avid risk in volatile Forex markets. Both the British Pound and the Euro have fallen drastically against the Dollar. Even though the Pound and the Euro are troubled there are currencies so worthless that Forex traders and investors avoid them like the plague. For your enjoyment and amusement here are the world’s 10 worst currencies.
1. It takes 642,371,437,695,221,000 Zimbabwean dollars to purchase 1 US dollar. Most Forex traders have given up tracking the fall of this currency. To give the reader an idea of commodity prices in Zimbabwe, an egg cost 35 billion Zimbabwean dollars! The German firm that prints currency for Zimbabwe has refused to print more money for them. The economic chaos in Zimbabwe is blamed on mismanagement by President Mugabe.
2. Somalian Shilling. It takes 35,000 Shillings to purchase one US dollar. The shilling has been the official currency since 1962 but the breakdown of the government has rendered the currency of this war torn country almost worthless on Forex exchanges.
3. The Manat from Turkmenistan. It takes 24,000 Turkmen Manat to purchase one US dollar. This is another currency that sends chills down the spine of Forex traders and investors. The country got its own currency when it broke away from the former Soviet Union. Turkmenbashi, president for life has placed his image on all Turkmenistan’s currency. Despite large reserves of oil and natural gas the country remains impoverished.
4. The Vietnamese currency is the Dong and it takes 16,975.00 Dong to purchase one US dollar. The country has an emerging tourist economy and visitors are asked to pay for goods and services in dollars.
5. Sao Tome and Principe are islands off the west coast of Africa. The currency is called the Dobra and it takes 14,350 Dobra to purchase one US dollar. Most Forex traders have probably never heard of this former Portuguese colony. The second smallest nation in Africa it exports coffee, palm kernels, and cocoa.
6. The thriving nation of Indonesia surprisingly has one of the most worthless currencies in the world. It takes 11,198.40 Rupiah to purchase one US dollar. Despite increased industrialization its currency is one of the least valuable in the world.
7. Iran has impressive reserves of oil and yet its currency remains unimpressive to Forex traders. It takes 10,179 Iranian Rial to purchase one US dollar. Despite Iran’s reserve of petro dollars its currency does not perform well on Forex exchanges.
8. Laos has been developing a tourist economy but its currency remains one of the most worthless in the world. It would take 8,640.75 Laotian Kip to purchase one US dollar. Laos remains a popular tourist destination because of its exotic wildlife and inexpensive accommodations.
9. The African nation of Guinea has the ninth worst currency in the world. It takes 5,115.00 Guinean Francs to purchase one US dollar. Although this nation is rich in aluminum ore bauxite, diamonds and gold, its currency is shunned by Forex traders and investors.
10. Paraguay is an impoverished South American nation with an unimpressive currency. It takes 4,615.00 Guarani to purchase one US dollar. 35% of the population of Paraguay lives in poverty and the unemployment rate is a whopping 16%. On the bright side, the capital city Asuncion is ranked as the cheapest city in the world. Most Forex traders are reluctant to handle this nation’s currency.
At present, these third world nations have the world’s most worthless currencies. These currencies are usually avoided by both Forex traders and investors. Many of these nations are rich in natural resources but for whatever reasons [corruption, dictatorship, bag governance] have failed to adequately develop and market them. At the present time these currencies are not widely traded in Forex markets but should these nations develop their resources they could join the ranks of first world currencies on Forex markets.
