“In the 1920s O G S Crawford invented aerial archaeology, one of many services this eccentric Marxist misanthrope performed for the study of antiquity.”
- Jonathan Meades: Link

Bloody Old Britain: O G S Crawford and the Archaeology of Modern Life

By Kitty Hauser

Granta Books, 286pp

Amazon: Link

“Future archaeologists will perhaps excavate the ruined factories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the radiation effects of Atom bombs have died away.”
- O. G. S. Crawford, from Archaeology in the Field (1953)

O. G. S. Crawford @ Wikipedia: Link.

~ Karl Jones

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Zambia joined the rest of the world in commemorating the world AIDS day on Monday.

In lusaka, people from all walks of life matched from the University of Zambia great East road campus to Mulungushi International Conference Centre where activities to commemorate the day took place.

Addressing the gathering at Mulungushi International Conference Center Health Minister, Kapembwa Simbao, said Zambia has made significant progress in the fight against the pandemic.

Mr. Simbao said currently 2-hundred thousand people are on anti- retroviral treatment.

And UNDP resident co-ordinator, Macleod Nyirongo, said there are now fewer cases of HIV infections and AIDS related deaths world wide.

American Amabassador to Zambia, Donald Booth, said prevention is the only effective way of reduce cases of HIV/AIDS.

Lots of countries are handing out stimulus packages to try to stop economic turmoil. It’s great to see that China realizes that the future of the economy is green. China is investing in knowledge-based employment and green infrastructure.

For several years, the Chinese government has been sponsoring a shift from energy-intensive to knowledge-intensive jobs and economic activity. China’s recently-announced $586 billion stimulus package (Rmb4,000bn, £380bn) will transform its economy even faster, by promoting economic restructuring and essential green infrastructure.

The slowdown makes this transition all the more urgent, because GDP growth in China’s service sector produces more jobs than does the industrial sector. With recent GDP growth rates above 10 percent, China’s heavy industry generated enough new jobs.

But with slower growth forecasts, continuing large cohorts of high school and college graduates, and its rural population moving to non-agricultural employment, China needs to generate even more jobs from its economic investments.

Many details on China’s stimulus package have yet to be released, but what we know so far is promising. It includes 12 percent for direct energy efficiency and environmental improvements. In addition, the programs doubles—to $85 billion—investment in rail transport (a lower-carbon alternative to road and air transport), and adds $70 billion for new electricity grid infrastructure.

New, more flexible and sophisticated grid infrastructure is vital to increasing the efficient use of both traditional fuels and renewable energy sources. Furthermore, the stimulus package promises considerable investment in health, education and rural services. These sectors are both less energy intensive and strong on promoting jobs and welfare.

This year's world AIDS day was characterized by a lot of memories both sad and happy memories. Sad that last year, 7,000 people were infected with HIV each day. and that every 15 seconds, a person dies of HIV or AIDS related illnesses. And happy because Zambia's prevalence rate has dropped from about 16% to about 14%, though this is still high. We are also happy that more and more Zambians are now having access to ARV Drugs for free!

The University of Zambia held its commemorations for the WAD at the Medical school where poems and theater were performed for the staff and students. I was privileged to be part of the organizing committee and honored to chair it. In building up to the event, we had different activities. On Friday 28th, we had the 'Couple Night Chat' with students in relationships. We were discussing issues around Gender, Sexual Harassment and Healthy relationships. On Saturday 29th, we had a student debate on whether HIV testing should be made mandatory. On Sunday, 30th we had traditional games and soccer to bring students together. We also had an Arts Night Competition.

On the actual world AIDS Day, one of the students living with HIV came up to share his status to the public. This was on of the inspiring moments of the day. The British High Commissioner to Zambia graced the occasion.

JOS, Nigeria, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Residents delivered more bodies to the main mosque in the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday, bringing the death toll from two days of clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs to around 400 people.

Rival ethnic and religious mobs have burned homes, shops, mosques and churches in fighting triggered by a disputed local election in a city at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. It is the country's worst unrest for years.

Murtala Sani Hashim, who has been registering the dead as they are brought to the city's main mosque, told Reuters he had listed 367 bodies and more were arriving. Ten corpses wrapped in blankets, two of them infants, lay behind him.

A doctor at one of the city's main hospitals said he had received 25 corpses and 154 injured since the unrest began.

"Gunshot wounds, machete injuries, those are the two main types," Dr Aboi Madaki, director of clinical services at Jos University Teaching Hospital, told Reuters.

The overall toll was expected to be higher, with some victims already buried and others taken to other clinics.

The violence appeared to die down on Sunday. Soldiers patrolled on foot and in jeeps to enforce a 24-hour curfew imposed on the worst-hit areas. People who ventured out walked with their hands in the air to show they were unarmed.

"They are still picking up dead bodies outside. Some areas were not reachable until now," said Al Mansur, a 53-year-old farmer who said all the homes around his had been razed.

Overturned and burnt-out vehicles littered the streets while several churches, a block of houses and an Islamic school in one neighbourhood were gutted by fire.

The Red Cross said around 7,000 people had fled their homes and were sheltering in government buildings, an army barracks and religious centres. A senior police official said five neighbourhoods had been hit by unrest and 523 people detained.

SIMMERING TENSIONS

Nigeria's 140 million people are roughly equally split between Muslims and Christians and the two communities generally live peacefully side by side.

But ethnic and religious tensions in the country's central "Middle Belt" have bubbled for years, rooted in resentment from indigenous minority groups, mostly Christian or animist, towards migrants and settlers from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north.

The latest clashes between gangs of Muslim Hausas and mostly Christian youths began early on Friday and were provoked by a disputed local election after rumours spread that the ANPP party candidate backed by Hausas had lost the race to the ruling PDP.

"It's religious. They were burning mosques and churches. They used politics as a cover-up," said Suleyman Yusuf, a Muslim from the Yoruba ethnic group, two of whose friends were killed.

Yusuf was sheltering with some 4,000 men, women and children -- Christian and Muslim, and from a variety of ethnic groups -- in a national drug agency building set up by aid workers.

Hundreds were killed in ethnic-religious fighting in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in 2001. Hundreds more died in 2004 in clashes in Yelwa, also in Plateau, leading then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to declare an emergency.

Unrest in the state has in the past triggered reprisal attacks between different ethnic and religious groups in other areas of the country.

But the security forces appear to have reacted more quickly than in the past to contain the violence in Jos, with the army sending in reinforcements from neighbouring states. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa. reuters.com/ ) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Foxknot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (2002) watercolor 16 x 18

Movement, strength, mystery, nature, earth and a little whimsy too. Could this be an Animal Ally knot with Fox-faeries? As such the knot would impart wisdom of fox with a fae influence. The circular knot is a symbol of interconnection, unity and eternity. Fox imparts the ability to watch the motivations and movements of others while remaining unobserved. Faery is otherworldly, magical and mysterious; not of this world, nor influenced by it. This knot would be a spiritual tool to help the person become a silent watcher who moves easily between worlds. I love this wonderful, whimsical interpretation of a Celtic Knot.

A deeper understanding of Celtic knots and Animal Allies:

The Celtic knot symbolizes the Thread of Life. To the Celts, the human soul was thought to be a fragment of the divine, which will ultimately return to its divine source. Through successive rebirths the soul rids itself of its accumulated, inherited impurities until it finally achieves the goal of perfection.

The interlaced, or latticed, knotwork patterns, with their unbroken lines, symbolize the process of humankind’s eternal spiritual evolution. When the cord is unravelled, it leads us on. A knot lattice can be used as an aid to concentration by occupying the conscious mind with a demanding repetitive task.

Our Animal Allies or helpers choose us to help us with our growth and understanding.  A detailed description of Celtic Animal Allies.

 

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law is a 31 year old artist/programmer. She began painting otherworlds in early childhood.  Graduated from a program of Computer Science in 1998. After working in programming for three years, She left the world logic for the world of fae; painting full time.  You can read news, learn about watercolor painting, browse her galleries and purchase paintings at www.shadowscapes.com.

~Bonnee Klein Gilligan

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Rome: It’s beautiful and it’s not. Kinda like everything else in life.

“La prossima fermata è Roma Termini.”

I moved to Italy to live at the end of September last year. I lived in Brescia (a medium-sized city in Northern Italy) until March 1, when I moved to Siena.

(I am once again back in Brescia, but that’s a story I’m going to save for another day.)

I picked up some vocabulary during those first five months in Italy, but it wasn’t until I started attending an Italian class for immigrants in Siena that I really started learning the language.

Now, finally!, I understand much of what is being said either to me or around me. The language no longer sounds foreign or like pretty sounds flowing forth from people’s mouths. Although I’m more motivated to learn the language–because it finally seems like an achievable goal to converse fluently–the glossy veneer of the nonsensical musical sounds has dulled. I don’t know, there’s something about understanding when somebody complains about the weather (or conversely, the ease in which I can complain about it) that makes any language sound less romantic.

Shiny glossy veneers are so overrated. Don’t you think? I mean, a veneer is just a thin expensive sheet of wood (or metal) with layers upon layers of unusually toxic clear varnish. If it wasn’t for the common cheap material beneath (like pine or regular mild steel), the veneer would have nothing to attach itself to.

And I’ve always preferred the look of a dull, used or aged finish anyway…and now that I’ve exhausted my analogy I’m finished with this post.

But one more thing before I go to bed on this hot summer night: it is nice to know that you can simply listen to the conductor to know when your next stop is and not have the nervous wondering of whether you’ve missed it or have yet to arrive.

Arrivederci a dopo.

~Janelle Renée

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Natural Touch is a Non Governmental Organisation based in Calabar the Eastern part of Nigeria.The inspiration come from a point of observation of handicapped people and Children roaming the streets of some citites in Nigeria mostly in Calabar begging for alms.
Most of them at the end of the day retired to uncompleted buildings to pass the night,It was a very gory site when a reported case of ritual dehumanising killing of two of such people in a street close to my residence.These two were killed and some part of them remove for rituals activities or some other things not quite known to us.

So touched by such inhuman treament to people because of their inability to defend themselves or provide proper accomodation for themselves,and even a source of livelihood was traumatic,hence,my decision to get the NGO (NATURAL TOUCH) started,with the aim to provide food and shelter for the hanicapped.Make sure there is a future for them and security of life for them.

Upon our inception,we had limited our intention to mostly the young ones and average aged.Although we could not provide accomodation for them but we  provide the basic needs which is food for them atleast once a day.

It is our aim to increase the feeding arrangement to twice a day and also build a home for them.It is our aim to accomodate at least 2000-5000 handicapped people of difiers ages in the home,and Animals too.
With support from other Organisations/Individauls that are touched just as we are.We will establish a school or a handicraft centre for them to study and become independent of their own in future.
Suffice to say here that most of them roam the street with torn cloths and look unkept,We also provide clothing where necessary and affordable to them.
Based on our inability to sustain the financial burden,we are looking forward to Groups or Individuals with similar passion as we have towards uplifting the living standard of these hadicapped and also thinking of ensuring their future.

We are planning of building a home for them in Calabar to accomodate the handicapped and also recruit personnels to take care of their cooking and tranining.
We look forward to support  from passionate groups and individuals.
Thanks,
Dennis

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Technology for human needs:

• The Outquisition
• Engineers Without Borders
• MIT International Design Summit
• Free/Open Appropriate Technology
• Transition Towns
• Technology for Humanity

(...)
Read the rest of Technology for Humanity (735 words)

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(Written for SAWNET, http://sawnet.org/books/reviews.php?Aids+Sutra)



Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.

Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.

Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.

Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.

Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.

Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.

India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.

In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.

The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.

Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.

One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.

De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.

By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.

Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.

Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.

I’ve never built a roof before, but now I want to build a reciprocal roof. Go ahead and take a shot building your own roof!

What is a reciprocal roof?
A reciprocal roof is a beautiful and simple self-supporting structure that can be composed of as few as three rafters, and up to any imaginable quantity (within reason, of course). Reciprocal roofs require no center support, they are quick to construct, and they can be built using round poles or dimensional lumber (perhaps with some creative notching). They are extremely strong, perfect for round buildings, and very appropriate for living roofs, as well. The reciprocal roof design was developed by Graham Brown in 1987.

The administrative failures also meant that the program was unable to adequately safeguard people's rights. If people trust the program, it increases the number of people who agree to be tested, gets them into treatment and fights the stigma attached to HIV.
Michaela Clayton of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA)

Related Materials: A Testing Challenge

Program for Widespread Outreach Was Underfunded, Incomplete and Ineffective
(Johannesburg) - Lesotho's drive to test all of its citizens age 12 or older for the virus that causes AIDS fell short of its goals, both in carrying out the program and in safeguarding the rights of those tested, said Human Rights Watch and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in a new report released today.

The 60-page report, "A Testing Challenge: The Experience of Lesotho's Universal HIV Counseling and Testing Campaign," found that the Know Your Status (KYS) campaign, begun in 2005 with the goal of testing 1.3 million people, was underfunded and had tested only 25,000 people by August 2007, four months before the campaign ended. Ambitious goals to train and pay thousands of lay counselors and expand support groups for people living with HIV were largely sidelined. Supervision of counselors and post-test referrals to HIV prevention or treatment was poorly carried out. The program also took insufficient steps to ensure proper respect for such rights-related requirements as informed consent and confidentiality.

"The administrative failures also meant that the program was unable to adequately safeguard people's rights," said Michaela Clayton of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA). "If people trust the program, it increases the number of people who agree to be tested, gets them into treatment and fights the stigma attached to HIV."

Expanding access to HIV testing is critically important to ensure that people living with HIV can get treatment and that others can avoid becoming infected. Lesotho was one of the first countries to implement a mass HIV testing program in communities across the country. Lesotho's program was noble in ambition but weak in action, Human Rights Watch and ARASA said.

"Community-based HIV testing programs have real potential for reaching people who are otherwise unlikely to test," said Joseph Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS and human rights program at Human Rights Watch. "It sounds like a simple approach, but for these programs to be truly successful, they must provide counseling, ensure confidentiality, and link people to HIV prevention and treatment services. If countries fail to incorporate human rights protections, these programs can easily lead to serious abuses."

Human Rights Watch and ARASA conducted dozens of interviews with officials, community-based counselors, health staff and other key informants in Lesotho in October 2007 and February 2008.

The two organizations highlighted five elements needed to ensure an effective, rights-based HIV testing campaign:

Potential participants should have the opportunity to make a voluntary and informed decision to test. This requires giving them sufficient information about HIV, AIDS, and HIV testing; Confidentiality of test results should be protected; People who agree to be tested should have meaningful access to follow-up services, including HIV prevention, care and treatment, regardless of the test result, so that they can get the tools and skills needed to protect their health;

Accountability mechanisms should be put in place to allow governments carrying out the programs to learn of any potential abuses expeditiously and take corrective steps; and
Laws and policies should be in place to protect people who test positive against discrimination and violence based on their HIV status.

"Human rights protections should be an integral part of any HIV testing campaign," said Amon. "In Lesotho, what we've seen is that the absence of these protections made the campaign less effective."

Human Rights Watch and ARASA noted that similar community-based testing programs are proliferating throughout the region and called upon the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to issue guidance to countries on community-based testing. WHO assisted Lesotho in drafting the KYS campaign plan and played a crucial role in incorporating plans for features designed to protect the rights of participants, but it did not ensure that the government actually carried out those protections.

"WHO and UNAIDS should play a leadership role as this new method of expanding testing is implemented," said Clayton. "They need to issue guidelines to countries and be more active in encouraging countries to put human rights safeguards into effect."

(HRW)

The Sudanese government is well-known for having little tolerance for criticism. This is part of a wider pattern of trying to silence those who support international justice and to suppress information about the human rights situation in Sudan.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director

Harassment of Those Speaking Out Against Abuses Increasing

November 26, 2008(New York, November 26, 2008) - Sudanese authorities have arrested and detained three human rights defenders in Khartoum, two of whom remain in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 24, 2008, Sudanese authorities in Khartoum summoned the three men to the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) offices, where they were detained and questioned about their human rights activities.

One, Amir Suliman, was released the same day. Abdelmoneim Aljak was released early the following morning but re-arrested on November 26, and Osman Hummaida, who is British, also remains in custody. The security service has not charged any of the men with any crime. They were questioned only regarding their human rights activities.

"The Sudanese government is well-known for having little tolerance for criticism," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This is part of a wider pattern of trying to silence those who support justice and to suppress information about the human rights situation in Sudan."

Over the last year, the Sudanese government has increasingly targeted those who have spoken out about human rights abuses, the situation in Darfur, or international justice. This harassment intensified considerably following the May 10 attack by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on the capital and the announcement by the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court on July 14 requesting an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Journalists trying to publish articles about the situation in Darfur or the May 10 events and staff members of national NGOs working on these issues have been summoned and forced to censor any articles regarded as critical of the authorities.

Hummaida and Aljak work as consultants to civil society and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Suliman is chairperson of the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development (KCHRED). The three were summoned by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) political section in Khartoum North at around noon on November 24. A colleague was allowed to bring medicine for Hummaida later that afternoon.

Suliman was released at 8 p.m. and summoned again and detained briefly the following evening. Aljak was released the following day without charge, but was summoned again on November 26 and remains in the security service's custody. Hummaida is still being held without charge and has not been allowed to speak to his lawyer.

Sudanese authorities have not said on what basis the three were summoned or detained, but they are active in the Sudanese human rights movement and have participated in awareness-raising campaigns on justice and accountability, as well as highlighting the ongoing human rights situation in Sudan.

The three men were summoned by the political affairs section of NISS, which deals with civil society organizations and political parties. All three have previously been detained on several occasions because of their human rights activities.

"As well as being concerned for Osman Hummaida and Abdelmoneim Aljak's well-being, we fear that these arrests of human rights activists will not be the last," said Gagnon.

(HRW)

this is the best one meeting of HIV

http://www.sexo-goteborg-2009.com/registration.php

^_^