Le Mpox, variole du singe n'est pas la même chose que le Covid-19. Ce sont les assurances du directeur Europe de l'Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), Hans Kluge lors d'un point de presse, mardi 20 août 2024, à Genève.
Plusieurs pays africains enregistrent des cas de variole de signe. L'épidémie de variole du singe constitue une urgence de santé publique de portée internationale mais elle n'est pas le nouveau coronavirus. « Ce n'est pas la même chose que le Covid-19 et le Mpox peut être maîtrisé », a confié Hans Kluge, le Directeur régional de l'OMS pour l'Europe de l'OMS rapporté par l'Organisation des Nations unies. D'après ce que nous savons, poursuit-il, la variole simienne se transmet principalement par contact cutané avec les lésions de la variole, y compris lors des rapports sexuels. Il informe également que « chaque mois une centaine de nouveaux cas de clade II du Mpox sont signalés dans la région européenne ».
Selon Hans Kluge, il faut « lutter ensemble contre le Mpox dans toutes les régions et sur tous les continents ». « Acheter des vaccins et des antiviraux pour ceux qui en ont besoin, sur la base d'évaluations stratégiques des risques. En résumé, même si nous renforçons notre vigilance à l'égard du clade I du Mpox, nous pouvons - et devons - nous efforcer d'éliminer une fois pour toutes le clade II en Europe », a-t-il ajouté. Il souligne la nécessité d'agir avec la région africaine de l'OMS et ses États membres touchés.
A.A.A
Amnesty International dans son dernier rapport a alerté sur le nombre de décès de prisonniers enregistré sur la période de janvier 2023 à juillet 2023. Selon le rapport de l'organisation, 46 détenus seraient morts dans 04 prions au Bénin, sur les 11 maisons d'arrêt que compte le pays. Préoccupés, les députés de la minorité parlementaire ont interpellé le gouvernement.
Les députés de l'opposition veulent avoir des explications du gouvernement par rapport au nombre de décès enregistré dans les prisons au Bénin ces dernières années. A travers une série de questions, ils souhaitent avoir la confirmation du Garde des Sceaux, ministre de la justice et de la législation sur les chiffres publiés par Amnesty International dans son dernier rapport. Selon ces chiffres, 46 détenus seraient morts dans 04 prisons sur les 11 que compte le Bénin. Les parlementaires souhaitent avoir les explications de l'exécutif béninois sur ‘'le nombre élevé'' de décès de détenus, et les chiffres à la date du 1er août 2024, les dispositions prises par le gouvernement pour améliorer les conditions de détention.
Lire les questions adressées au gouvernement
1-Le Garde des Sceaux, ministre de la justice et de la législation confirme-t-il l'information selon laquelle 46 détenus sont morts entre janvier et juillet 2023 ?
2-Quelles justifications le gouvernement donne face à ce taux élevé de cas de décès de détenus au cours de la période de janvier à juillet 2023 ?
3-De juillet 2023 au 1er août 2024, date de publication du rapport par Amnesty International, combien de détenus sont déjà décédés dans les 11 prisons que compte le Bénin ?
4-Selon Amnesty International, des soins seraient refusés à des détenus par le personnel infirmier ou administratif, y compris en cas d'urgence. Pourquoi ? N'ont-ils pas droit ?
5-L'accès aux soins des détenus serait-il sélectif ?
6-Existe-t-il un personnel médical adéquat au service des détenus dans chacune des 11 maisons d'arrêts du Bénin ?
7-Quelles sont les dispositions prises par les autorités béninoises pour améliorer les conditions de détention dans les 11 prions du Bénin et se conformer aux normes internationales relatives au traitement des détenus en matière de droits humains ?
Warm up at the Government Girls Degree College, Jacobabad. Most girls feel awkward and shy when they first wear track pants and T-shirt but do realize they cannot run swiftly in their traditional outfits they are used to wearing. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 21 2024 (IPS)
Goalkeeper Rehana Jamali, 17, is jubilant. Her team came in second in the All Sindh Women Hockey Tournament, held last month.
“We were the youngest of the seven teams,” she told IPS over the phone from Jacobabad, in Pakistan’s Sindh province. The city hit headlines two years ago after being termed the hottest city on earth when its temperatures rose to 50 degrees Celsius. This year, the mercury shot up to 52 degrees Celsius there. “We were training for the tournament from May to June, when the heat was at its worst,” said Jamali.
“Obviously, this affected our game,” she admitted.
“You cannot imagine the obstacles these girls have to overcome,” pointed out Erum Baloch, 32, a schoolteacher and a former hockey player, who runs the only women’s sports academy in Jacobabad, the Stars Women Sports Academy, of which Jamali is a member.
In many parts of Pakistan, especially in small towns like Jacobabad, women are supposed to maintain a certain degree of invisibility and not bring too much attention to themselves. Exercising, stretching or even doing yoga postures while wearing T-shirts and track pants in a public place where men can watch, is awkward for many women in Pakistan, as these can reveal a woman’s body shape.
To encourage more women to pursue sports and play their best, the government must provide monetary support for their transport, nutrition and health needs. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
The Star Women’s Sports Academy team from Jacobabad stood second at the Asifa Bhutto Zardari Women’s Hockey Tournament held in Sukkur in July 2024. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
A 2022 study, found that “almost 90 percent” of Pakistani women and girls do not participate in sports or physical activities because of “religious and cultural limitations, a lack of permission from parents, and a lack of sports facilities and equipment.”
“Even when facilities are present in Pakistan, they are often outdated, open-air, and/or mixed gender, with female students often feeling embarrassed to participate in sports alongside, or be visible to, men. Hence, such women decide not to use these facilities,” the study pointed out.
Baloch left sports because Jacobabad could not provide women like her with “proper grounds, equipment or coaches.”
These are the very reasons why she wanted to open an academy just for women. It is completely free of charge, as “most girls come from extremely modest backgrounds and cannot even afford to pay for transport, a healthy meal or even bottled water,” she said.
“Erum pays for my daily commute to and from the sports ground,” said Jamali. In fact, Baloch spends between 25,000 and 30,000 rupees (USD 90 and USD 108) each month from her own pocket to pay for the transport, bottled water during training and sachets of oral rehydration salts for some 30 to 40 girls, aged between 9 and 18.
Haseena Liaqat Ali, 19, was the most promising athlete at Baloch’s academy but six months ago she missed the trials for selection in the Pakistan army’s team after she got infected with Hepatitis A.
“With rising gas and electricity prices, they cannot even afford to boil water at home,” said the coach, who thinks unclean water is a big reason for the people contracting the disease.
“I still feel very weak,” said Ali. Having left her treatment midway as her father could not afford the medicines, she has had a relapse.
“Life is unjust for the poor,” said Baloch, adding that “Sports stars often come from small towns like ours.”
Many promising athletes, like 19-year-old Haseena Liaquat Ali, cannot even afford medicines to complete treatment of their illnesses. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
With hours of power outages and little respite from heat, many athletes complain they never get enough rest. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
But it is not just the cultural and economic barriers that are keeping Pakistani women out of the sporting arena; they must fight another barrier—climate change-induced rising temperatures.
“We get tired quickly,” said Jamali.
Haseena Soomro, 19, another athlete at the same academy, added: “The heat is unbearable, and we are unable to run fast.”
The girls play on astroturf, which absorbs more heat from the sun than grass and has no natural way of cooling. But Baloch said it was better than playing on loose earth, which they did in the past. “The sand would go in our eyes and because of the high temperatures, the soil would get too hot during the day.” Further, she said there was always the danger of snakes lurking under the earth.
To beat the heat, Baloch rescheduled the practice to begin late in the evening—from 6 to 9 pm, for which she had to go to each family personally to allow their girls to come for the training. Even at that time, she said, “The heat continues to be unforgiving.”
“Jacobabad refuses to cool down in the night and there is no wind,” pointed out Aqsa Shabbir, 17, another hockey player. And although she has an air conditioner in her home, she said it was nothing more than a “showpiece,” as they are without electricity for most of the night. “We never get a fitful night’s sleep,” she said.
Erum Baloch (middle, holding the runner-up award) said sports healed her when she was going through depression after she lost her only brother in a suicide bombing in 2015. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
Baloch said the city was witnessing unprecedented power outages and together with the high temperatures, it has meant the residents never get any respite to cool down. John Jacob, the British brigadier general, who the city is named after, described the wind as “a blast from the furnace” even at night.
Ali’s home was without electricity for 15 days as their area transformer burst. “My father bought a solar panel on loan which generated enough electricity to light a bulb and a fan, but the strong winds ruined the glass on it and it does not work anymore,” she said.
The late evening training has also come with its own set of social problems.
Jannat Bibi, Jamali’s mother, who had given permission, grudgingly said it was getting tedious making excuses to the neighbors and relatives for her daughter’s absence from home or her coming home after dark.
“Girls cannot venture out alone after dark,” she said, adding: “This sport cannot continue for much longer,” she said, worried that if word gets out, it may be difficult to find a “good” marriage proposal for her daughter later.
“My father’s angry mood affects my performance, as I’m always tense about getting late,” said Jamali. “I wish my parents would be proud of my achievements, but all they are concerned about is what others are thinking,” she added irritably.
Graphic credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS
Graphic credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS
Dur Bibi Brohi, a former hockey player, got married at 19 and never played after that.
“That was the most beautiful time of my life,” reminisced the 23-year-old mother of two, thankful that her parents allowed her to travel out of the city and even out of the country for a few matches.
“The few years that I played sports changed me from a shy and meek person to a more confident me; I wish more parents could be like mine and not let societal pressures dictate them,” she added.
This is endorsed by Baloch.
Dribbling drills at the Government Girls Degree College, Jacobabad. Girls must not venture out alone after dark, said the mother of an athlete. She said if word gets out, it may be difficult to find a “good” marriage proposal for her daughter. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
Rehana Jamali, her team’s goalkeeper, cannot help but think of the acrimony at home she faces for returning home late in the evening after her training sessions; she says it affects her performance. Credit: Erum Baloch/IPS
“Women get strong physically and mentally through sports,” she said, giving her own example. She said it “healed” her when she was in depression after she lost her only brother in a suicide bombing in 2015.
“I was 25 and he was 23, and he was my best buddy.”
She had already lost her father when she was four. And being in the sports arena helps her even now as a health carer for her mother, who is a cancer patient.
Another challenge is their attire.
“Initially, I felt shy playing in a T-shirt and track pants and kept pulling the shirt down as it showed off my thighs,” said Jamali.
“Most girls find this dress code awkward, and it affects their concentration,” said Baloch.
But Jamali realized she could not run as swiftly in the loose, long shirt with heavy embroidery on the front, baggy pants and chadar [big scarf] that she wears at home.
“I have accepted the uniform,” she said, but makes sure she wears an abaya (a loose gown) over it when leaving her home to reach the sports ground. “Seeing me in western attire on the street would create quite a scandal in the neighbourhood!” she said.
A way out of all these barriers, said Baloch, would be a small ‘5-A side’ air-conditioned facility. “It will be the biggest support for women athletes in Jacobabad in the summer, which is long and unbearable here,” she said.
In addition, Baloch also believed that if the government is serious about encouraging women to enter sports and play their best, they need continuous support in the form of a stipend to be able to manage their transport, nutrition and health needs.
“I sometimes manage to get uniforms and shoes sponsored but this slapdash approach needs to stop,” said Baloch.
IPS UN Bureau Report
This feature piece is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
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Tara Phillips in Paris. Credit: AM/SWAN.
By SWAN
PARIS, Aug 21 2024 (IPS)
For the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth, an international array of literature fans are coming together in Paris at a festival that will honour the life and work of the iconic American author and civil rights activist.
The James Baldwin Centennial Festival, scheduled for Sept. 9 to 13, aims to be a “celebration” that will take place at multiple venues in the French capital, according to Tara Phillips, executive director of La Maison Baldwin, the organizers.
The non-profit group (founded in 2016 in Saint Paul de Vence, where Baldwin spent the last 17 years of his life) essentially wishes to preserve and promote the writer’s legacy by “nurturing creativity, fostering intellectual exchange, and championing diverse voices through conferences and residencies,” according to its stated objectives.
In the eight years since it was formed, however, La Maison Baldwin hasn’t always had smooth sailing, as some of its activities ran counter to the vision of Baldwin’s family on how to honour his uncompromising work and long-lasting influence. But now, with new direction, the organization has the family’s support, including for the festival, Phillips says.
Baldwin – the author of stirring books such as The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room – remains one of the most revered (and quoted) writers today, decades after his death in 1987. Born on Aug. 2, 1924, he would have turned 100 this year, and the festival might have been held in his birth month were it not for the recent Paris Olympic Games.
According to Phillips, the event will comprise panel discussions, writing workshops, an art exhibition, student participation and an open-mic segment, among the various features.
In the following edited interview, conducted in person in Paris, Phillips discusses the overall goals and the far-reaching power of Baldwin’s works and words.
SWAN: Let’s start with the centenary and why this festival, why it’s taking place in France.
Tara Phillips: La Maison Baldwin was founded in the south of France, and it was intended to provide both writers’ residencies and writers’ conferences. Then the founder moved to Paris in 2022 and left the organization. So, the centennial seems like the perfect opportunity to reclaim the organization and reintroduce it on new footing.
And so that’s why we thought it was important to do a centennial event, and we also wanted to be aligned with the family who had already been thinking about the centennial in early 2023. We were trying to build a relationship with them, and it just made sense that we were all thinking about this as a way to collectively honour his legacy.
(Note: Baldwin’s family held a centennial celebration at the Lincoln Center in New York on Aug. 7, at which Phillips spoke.)
SWAN: How will the family be involved in the Paris festival?
TP: Well, on the first day, there’s a welcoming reception, and I will invite Trevor Baldwin, James Baldwin’s nephew, to say a few words. But then on the following day, we’ll have the very first panel, called “La Maison Baldwin”, and it’s about the idea of home, both literally and also as in the Black literary tradition. Trevor will participate on that panel as somebody who knew his Uncle Jimmy, and can give some insight into the idea of home for James Baldwin. He was a Harlem man, but he lived all over the world, and his idea of home is pretty complex. And what I’m discovering as I get to know more and more members of the family is that a lot of them have this wanderlust and live in different parts of the world. So, that will be a way to engage a familial voice on that issue, particularly for Black people.
SWAN: Is the festival open to the general public?
TP: There’s a festival fee, but anybody can attend. James Baldwin’s followers and admirers are so diverse: you have the Black community, the literary community, the activist community, the LGBTQ+ community, you have students, academics, artists. The idea was to create an experience that would appeal to all those types of people, but always with the idea of centering James Baldwin.
SWAN: What are some of the other aspects of the event?
TP: We’ll have a welcome reception, and that’s going to be sponsored by the US Embassy. It will be just a moment to come together and celebrate the fact that we’re in Paris and to kick things off. Then we will start the next day with a keynote speaker (author Robert Jones, Jr.) and multiple panel discussions where we’ll be thinking about Baldwin and reflecting on the theme of the festival: Baldwin and Black Legacy, Truth, Liberation, Activism.
SWAN: How did the theme come about?
TP: It came about as the centennial committee brainstormed words that came to mind when we thought about Baldwin and his work and his impact. You know, he spoke truth, also in his writing. And for many people, it liberated them. He gave us the language to liberate us from conceptions of ourselves, or our perceptions of the world, and perceptions of our humanity. And that liberation motivates activism for many of us. That’s how we came to that theme.
SWAN: And continuing with the various elements of the festival, there will be an art exhibition?
TP: Yes, we’ll have an exhibition that will be running during the week. It’s called Frontline Prophet. Those works are by Sabrina Nelson, curated by Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha. It’s this brilliant collection of art sketches that Sabrina initially did in 2016 at the James Baldwin conference (held at the American University of Paris), and it’s returning, coming full circle.
SWAN: The festival will also have writing workshops (for an additional fee). Please tell us about those.
TP: We will have a fiction track and a creative nonfiction track. These are separate as not all festival participants will be joining.
But if you’re a writer and you want to have a curated experience with some successful writers, we have Deesha Philyaw (author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) doing the fiction workshop, and Brian Broome (author of the memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods) is doing the creative nonfiction. And that will be happening for folks who want to have that experience.
SWAN: In addition, there’s a big move to engage students, youth…
TP: Yes, there will be a student activism workshop. We want to engage young people with Baldwin’s work and tap into their own sense of activism. You know, these are such interesting times to be young, right? There have always been things happening in history, in our world, but because of social media, because we have access to see everything all the time, I think young people are engaged in a a very different way than they probably would have been without these mediums. And they’ve been the ones to kind of reinvigorate Baldwin’s language and works in a lot of ways.
So, we wanted to give them a space where they could explore the idea of activism through leadership, through creativity and through community. For those three days, they will have their own space together to look at some of Baldwin’s works, to engage with each other and talk with each other. We’re partnering with the Collectif Baldwin (a local organization) on that. I actually think this is the most important part of the festival.
SWAN: Where will the students be coming from?
TP: We basically would like to see students from everywhere who have the time or interest to attend. But we also think it’s very important that there’s a presence of French students as well because what I’m discovering, particularly as a I make more connections here in Paris, is that there is so much to be learned from Baldwin in the context of France and their relations around racism and cultural identity. So, to be able to engage French students in this conversation would be to discuss their own activism. After the workshop, they will also do a presentation – on what they learned and on how they can take Baldwin into the future.
SWAN: Let’s talk about your background coming into this. What is your personal relationship with Baldwin’s work?
TP: It’s interesting because I don’t remember the first time I ever really read James Baldwin. I know I don’t remember reading him when I was in high school – I remember reading Richard Wright and Lorraine Hansberry. But I was in high school in the Eighties before there really was an infusion of black literature, so it was hard to come by.
Then, I ended up reading The Evidence of Things Not Seen, which was interesting to read because it wasn’t the ones he’s known for. It was about the Atlanta Child Murders, which were happening around the same time that I was a kid. There’s something about being immersed in that specific topic and getting it from his perspective that was really interesting for me.
Then he would pop up in my psyche over the years, and now he kind of haunts me because I’m constantly doing this work. And the connection for me, with respect to taking on this work, is that I have moved to Paris as a Black American (in 2018), and I started writing then, and I could just really connect to his sense of freedom coming here. I mean, being in the United States as a Black American and then also as the mother of a Black son, there’s just a weight that you carry, and people who don’t have our experience, they don’t understand what it’s like, and they don’t understand how persistent it is: how you can try to live a life of joy, and of peace, and of intellectual curiosity and all of these things as a Black American, but there’s always a moment when you’re kind of smacked back to the reality of, like, our positioning in society and our history. His words became so important to me, especially after George Floyd’s murder. Baldwin just understood. He had the language.
Another connection for me, and I’ve written about this, is that my father’s name is James and my father was born in Harlem and grew up there, like Baldwin. Turns out that they both went to the same high school but 20 years apart. I think about my dad’s connection to Harlem, his Harlem pride, and how he left because things got so bad in the Sixties and Seventies. He moved my whole family out because he wanted something better for us. And in some ways, I feel that that was James Baldwin’s understanding: another black Jimmy from Harlem saying: “I’ve got to get out of here if I’m going to be true to my own humanity and live the life that I need to live.”
SWAN: In light of all this, what are your hopes for the festival overall?
TP: My hopes for the festival are that it’s really seen and viewed as a celebration of James Baldwin. That’s why I’ve been really keen on calling it a “festival” and not a “conference” because a conference tends to suggest an academic event, with people sitting and providing an analysis of his work, and what I’m hoping is: let’s just celebrate Uncle Jimmy and what he has given us.
Let it just be a party of writers and artists and creatives and scholars, just experiencing one another and Paris, and why this place was important for him and his own experience and development as a human. And let’s just celebrate young people, and their potential and their possibilities, which I think Baldwin really cared about. He had a word for everybody, you know. And it’s funny because Duke University Press has donated 300 copies of Little Man, Little Man, which Baldwin wrote for his nephew, and I love that this is a children’s book… this is what it’s really about – passing on the word for another generation. – AM / SWAN