MEDICAL PRACTIONERS SHOULD UPGRADE THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS PERIODICALLY - SMT. SUSHMA SWARAJ

KOCHI The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Smt. Sushma Swaraj said that
medical practitioners should upgrade their knowledge and skills periodically in view
of the fast developments in the medical science and technology. Speaking at the 9th
Convocation of National Board of Examinations at Kochy in Trivandrum today, she
called upon the medical community to devise institutionalised systems to enable the
doctors to update their knowledge and skills in a time-bond manner. She said that
the establishment of the National Board of Examinations fulfilled the need for
upgrading the quality of Medical Education. She called upon the Board to take a lead
in bringing about innovations and improvements in the Postgraduate Medical
Education system in the country.

The Minister emphasised that the Government alone is not sufficient to prevent, fight
and cure diseases and called upon private sector, Non-Governmental Organisations
(NGOs) and civil society to work together to deliver health care facilities to all the
people in an adequate manner. Smt. Sushma Swaraj said that 48% of mortality in
India is due to Non Communicable diseases, 42% due to Communicable diseases
and 10% due to injuries. She also expressed concerned at high levels of infant
mortality and maternal mortality in the country.

Annan Orders "Temporary Redeployment" Of U.N. Staff In Iraq

Thursday, September 25, 2003

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has ordered "a temporary redeployment" of the agency's international staff out of Iraq. "This is not an evacuation, just a further downsizing" after the bombing of U.N. offices in August, said Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard. Eckhard said there are currently 42 international staff in Baghdad and 44 in the north. "Those numbers can be expected to shrink further over the next few days," he said.

Annan made the decision on the advice of U.N. security, Eckhard said, but he would not say if this was based on any assessment of a new security threat. The international staff is being moved to Jordan "for possible return to Baghdad should conditions there permit," he said. Meanwhile, "essential humanitarian activities" would continue because of the more than 4,000 Iraqi employees of the United Nations working throughout the country, Eckhard added (Jim Wurst, U.N. Wire).

Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Governing Council's foreign minister, met with Annan yesterday, asking Annan to keep U.N. staff in Iraq. "The message we tried to carry (is) please do not pull out," Zebari said. "You have to stay the course and help." The U.N. staff in Iraq totalled 800 before the Aug.19 suicide attack against the U.N. compound that killed U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.

Iraq23 September 2003

Reporters Without Borders outraged over Pentagon's sham investigation

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage and disappointment today at the US Department of Defence's announcement that an official investigation has cleared the soldiers who shot and killed Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana on 17 August in Baghdad.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. George Krivo, yesterday said the investigation concluded that "although it was a regrettable incident," the soldiers "acted within the rules of engagement." Dana's employers, the British news agency Reuters, were not told prior to the announcement that the investigation had finished or what its findings were.

"Whether it's the shelling of the Palestine Hotel that killed two journalists or Mazen Dana's death, attributed to a soldier's mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, the Pentagon settles for sham investigations that totally lack transparency and offer no answers," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said.

"Only the conclusions - identical in each case - are released and not even those directly concerned are told," Ménard said. "This casualness, combined with the absence of measures to prevent more tragedies, is an insult to the journalists who have been victims of the US army's blunders." Ménard concluded : There are many blunders but investigations are non-existent or ineffective, since they all conclude that the US army is infallible."

Reporters Without Borders also said it was extremely concerned at the likelihood that more tragedies involving journalists and US soldiers could occur, given the high level of violence and the repeated attacks against the coalition forces in Iraq.

The organisation wrote to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on 18 August asking that soldiers in the field be given very clear instructions to act with restraint and care in order to respect the freedom of movement of journalists and not expose them to excessive danger. This request elicited no response and further incidents have occurred since then.

Tragedy was only narrowly avoided when American soldiers opened fire on a press vehicle clearly marked with the letters AP - the initials of the US news agency Associated Press - on 18 September in Khaldiya (about 80 km west of Baghdad). Soldiers fired several bursts with automatic weapons as AP reporter Karim Kadim tried to film a military convoy that had just come under attack.

The vehicle was hit by a score of bullets which shattered the windscreen and burst the tyres. Under fire, Kadim ran and took shelter behind the corner of a building. He said the letters AP were clearly visible but the soldiers opened fire all the same. According to witness reports, the US forces suffered heaving losses in a series of attacks on the convoy in Khaldiya.

Dana, 41, was shot dead by a US soldier while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in a western suburb of Baghdad on 17 August. US army Capt. Frank Thorp said the same day in Washington.

 

Call for journalist sentenced to death to be taken to hospital

Reporters Without Borders called today for the immediate transfer to hospital of Rehmat Shah Afridi, former editor of the Punjab daily papers Frontier Post and Maidan, who is in jail awaiting execution.

It urged Punjab provincial governor Khalid Maqbool to ensure proper medical care for the journalist, who has been deprived of medicine for serious heart trouble and has reportedly lost a lot of weight. It reiterated that his death sentence for supposed possession and trafficking of drugs was a trumped-up charge aimed at silencing the two newspapers.

Afridi, who is appealing against the sentence, was arrested on 2 April 1999 and on 27 June 2001 condemned to be hanged. He says he was convicted as part of revenge by the country's Anti-Narcotics Force, which is funded by the US government. The two papers frequently exposed corruption, drug trafficking and illegal arms sales.

After his arrest, he was tortured and sent to death row in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat prison. He also has back problems and until recently did not have a mattress despite being kept in his cell round the clock.

His family recently asked the Punjabi home affairs minister to allow him to have medical treatment. The minister said he would sent to a hospital specialising in cardiology, but this has not been done.

 

Iraqi Councilor Dies; U.S. Soldiers, NBC Offices Targeted

Aquila al-Hashimi, the Iraqi Governing Council member shot Saturday, died from her wounds last night. Al-Hashimi, one of three women on the 25-member council, had been receiving treatment at a U.S. military hospital.

Al-Hashimi was shot by six men in a pickup truck while driving near her home in western Baghdad. Although formerly a high-ranking official in Saddam Hussein's foreign ministry, she was nevertheless expected to become Iraq's new ambassador to the United Nations under Iraq's provisional government and had been preparing to attend the U.N. General Assembly session this week in New York (Steven Hurst, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Sept. 25).

Meanwhile, a bomb exploded today outside a hotel housing the offices of U.S. television network NBC, killing a hotel security guard and injuring an NBC technician. Iraqi police said the Somali guard was sleeping when the bomb went off, and that damage to the hotel was limited. The NBC employee, a sound technician from Canada, suffered a deep cut from flying glass, but the other 11 NBC employees in the hotel at the time of the blast were unhurt. NBC has maintained offices at the hotel for two months (Tarek al-Issawi, AP/Yahoo! News, Sept. 25).

In the northern city of Mosul, eight U.S. soldiers were wounded today — three seriously — after their convoy was attacked by small-arms fire and improvised bombs (Reuters, Sept. 25).

Turkey May Send Peacekeepers

Turkey could send as many as 10,000 soldiers to Iraq if the United Nations votes to authorize an international force. Turkey's National Security Council is expected to recommend the deployment this week, but the decision would need the final stamp of approval from the Turkish Parliament, which is not likely to make a decision on the matter until at least Oct. 15. In March, Turkey denied U.S. forces the use of military bases in eastern Turkey from which to launch a land attack into northern Iraq (Tom Squitieri, USA Today, Sept. 25).