Ethiopia, Djibouti working jointly to check illegal cross-boarder movements

Wednesday, 17 September 2008

Djibouti, September 17, 2008 (WIC) – Ethiopia and Djibouti are jointly working to put an end to illegal movement of people and property across their boarders, Ethiopia’s ambassador to Djibouti said.


Ambassador Shemsedin Ahmed told WIC that through the boundary commission and sub-committees, the two countries are working together at check points.



According to Ambassador Shemsedin the joint boundary commission convenes every sixth month and the sub-committees that monitor the activities of the Gelilie and Dewole checkpoints near the Afar and Dire Dawa gateways come together everyday to facilitate the cross boarder operations.



The relations of the sub-committees mainly help in solving problems in connection with human trafficking, controlling communicative diseases that affect humans and animals, curbing contraband trade and related problems, the Ambassador added.



Shemsedin stated that Ethiopia and Djibouti have agreed upon legal provisions that govern movements of citizens between the two countries, and it is implemented accordingly.



Yet there are illegal brokers trafficking lots of Ethiopians illicitly to Djibouti sidelining the joint agreement.



Formerly illegal travelers to Djibouti were mostly from close by areas such as Dessie, Kemissie, Dire Dawa and certain Afari localities. But this has recently changed particularly regarding western Ethiopian areas, the Ambassador said.



In addition the Ambassador said that underage youngsters, 15 and 16 years old, from rural areas have been deceived into believing that they would get jobs in Arab countries and turn around their lives in a very short period of time while the illegal traffickers make close to 10,000 Birr for getting them to Djibouti illicitly.



He added that lots of travelers lose their lives on the sea trying to cross to various countries by boarding boats that pose serious risks to them.



The travelers usually set out from Obock, a northern Djibouti port, while illegal traffickers take them through areas nearby to the port and abandon them, it was learnt.



The Ambassador concluded that in light of this it is necessary for the concerned parties to pay attention to the problem, while young people need to get together for purposes of creating jobs rather than take such dangerous risks.

quote:

Originally posted by 4now:



That squirrel is smoking a cigarette. That aint no syringe

LMAO!!! Too funny, 4Now!

I thought it was a bong!

Squirrel after the resque operations.

Happy 113th birthday for world's oldest man Thu Sep 18, 1:09 AM ET

The world's oldest man celebrated his 113th birthday on Thursday, telling reporters at his home in southern Japan about his joyful life and healthy appetite.

"I'm happy," said Tomoji Tanabe as the local mayor presented him with flowers and a giant tea cup glazed with his name and date of birth. "I'm well. I eat a lot," he added.

Tanabe, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest living male last year, eats mostly vegetables and believes the key to longevity is not drinking alcohol.

The former civil servant lives with his son, drinks milk every day and has no major illnesses, although he now writes in his diary only once or twice a month. He used to write on a daily basis.

"His favorite food is fried shrimp, but we've heard that he's cut back on oily food," said an official at his hometown of Miyakonojo, about 900 km (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo.

"He's said he wants to live for another 10 years, that he doesn't want to die." The Japanese are among the world's longest-lived people, with the number of those aged 100 or older at a record 36,276, a government report last week showed.

Japanese women have topped the world's longevity ranks for 23 years, while men rank third after Iceland and Hong Kong.

(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka; editing by Sophie Hardach)

Source

He's old, happy and healthy - what more can he ask for?

I'm confused. If women rank first and men rank third, what ranks second? A mixture between the two? LOL...

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
I'm confused. If women rank first and men rank third, what ranks second? A mixture between the two? LOL...

Yes, they left a few words out of that sentence making it a bit confusing - lol!

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Originally posted by 4now:



That squirrel is smoking a cigarette. That aint no syringe

LMAO!!! Too funny, 4Now!

Mother of the century award goes to.....

Gobble Gobble.. Google Google


T-Mobile to sell Google phone for $179 on Oct. 22


NEW YORK — The first cellphone running Google's mobile software looks something like Apple's iPhone and has a large touch screen, but it also packs a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google's e-mail and mapping programs.

Google made its debut as a cellphone software provider today at an event where Bellevue-based wireless carrier T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G1 phone for $179 with a two-year contract. The device hits U.S. stores Oct. 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year.

The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. By launch, that will be 21 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.

In other areas, people will be able to buy the phone from T-Mobile's Web site. The phone does work on T-Mobile's slower data network, but it's optimized for the faster networks. It can also connect at Wi-Fi hotspots.

The data plan for the phone will cost $25 a month on top of the calling service, at the low end of the range for data plans at U.S. wireless carriers.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google's founders, made a surprise appearance at the launch event. "It's just very exciting for me as a computer geek to be able to have a phone that I can play with and modify and innovate upon just like I have with computers in the past," Brin said.

He said he'd written an application for Android already: When a user throws the phone into the air, the program records how long it takes until it lands, using the phone's built-in motion sensor. Brin acknowledged that the wisdom of including such a program with an expensive phone is dubious.

"We did not include that one by default," he said.

Page said the mobile phone industry, which sells 1 billion units a year worldwide, was a tremendous opportunity for Google.

Google is giving away Android, the software that underlies the G1, for free, and opening the operating system to third-party developers who can create their own programs. Google hopes that in turn, mobile phones will provide even more ways for people to interact with the company's advertising network

Unbelievable

Pa. mom to admit giving bullied son guns

Published: 9/23/08, 12:06 PM EDT

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - A prosecutor says the mother of a bullied boy who planned an attack on a suburban Philadelphia high school has agreed to admit she helped build his cache of weapons.

Michele Cossey, of Plymouth Township, is charged with buying her son, Dillon, several weapons, including a handgun, rifle and laser scope.

Prosecutor Christopher Parisi tells The Associated Press that Cossey plans to plead guilty to related charges at a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Parisi says the mother, in her own way, was trying to help her 14-year-old son fend off bullies.


Defense attorney Tim Woodward did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press.

Dillon Cossey is serving time in a juvenile facility. A friend tipped off police last year, pre-empting the attack.

http://sundaystandard.info/news/news_item.php?NewsID=3659&GroupID=4


In the shadow of death
by Morula Morula
27.08.2008 9:52:38 A

They scurry for cover at the sight of a blue and white police van and their women line up the streets at night in mini skirts trying to catch the eyes of randy motorists who think nothing of paying P20 for a “quickie” with a stranger.

The close to 100, 000 economic refuges, mostly from Zimbabwe, come to Botswana to seek their fortune, but for a growing number, such as Mthandazo Sibanda, it’s going painfully wrong. Exploitation by cash-in-hand bosses and discriminatory government health services have condemned them to the squalor of overcrowded shacks - and a serious illness that could kill them and become a serious public health threat.

Zimbabwean immigrants can work legally in Botswana. Most, however, do not have work permits. They do casual labouring work when they can get it. They live underground, fearful of being forcefully returned to Zimbabwe if found out by immigration officers. They cannot access government free medical support.
The rules cannot be bent, it seems, even when they are suffering from tuberculosis, the highly infectious disease for which medication, along with housing, food and clean clothes, can mean the difference between life and death.

Mthandazo Sibanda has chronic TB. Before he was bundled into a police van and dumped in a Gaborone Prisons clinic, he was adrift somewhere in Mahalapye. For a while he was treated for chronic TB at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone but later discharged back to Mahalapye where the treatment was discontinued. It is feared that he may have infected others.
Until he was arrested by police for failing to take treatment and put in a prison clinic, he was staying at home in Mahalapye waiting to sort out his medication problems.

He was diagnosed with the disease on 6th August 2007 and tried to adhere to the treatment regimen prescribed by doctors at his own cost. He says government medical personnel “failed to exercise due care and skill in administering treatment for TB”. He was prescribed the wrong medication which adversely affected his health. Health personnel left him to manage his own dosage which is in violation of the guidelines outlined in the Direct Observation Treatment, the standard and practice for persons afflicted with TB.

He was also given conflicting medical results for TB and medical personnel failed to appraise him on his condition regularly as is standard practice for people affected with TB which he says caused him stress and mental anguish.

In December of the same year, he was suspected to be having Multiple Drug resistant TB because he was not responding to first line medication for TB. As a result, he was given MDR -TB treatment at Princess Marina Hospital as a patient. He was then discharged from hospital on 9th January and put on home based care. In April 2008, he went for a review and the doctor discovered that he was not prescribed one of the required essential drugs “amikacin”. Later the same month, it was included to the regimen until 3rd June when he was placed on a home-based care treatment.

Health care workers were required to administer intravenous treatment on a daily basis and to make sure that he took his TB medication. Unfortunately, this was not done. Later that month, he was admitted back at Princess Marina coughing blood and very weak.
When discharged a few days later, he was given a short supply of Multi Drug Resistant TB medication and sent back to Mahalapye where the TB Coordinator told him that he could not prescribe the medication he had been using from Princess Marina Hospital.
Sibanda then decided to give up on treatment until his treatment plan was sorted out.

Then TB coordinator and some nurses came to interview him and warned him that TB policy states that, if one ceases to take treatment and is a citizen he is forcibly admitted at the hospital and given treatment and that for non citizens they are deported with immediate effect. Two weeks later, on the 9th of July 2008, the TB coordinator came with policemen to fetch him.
On arrival at Princess Marina Hospital he was taken to the isolation ward and was then given a letter from the Ministry of Health stating that he was harbouring an infectious disease. He was then kept at the hospital for 21 days without treatment and was told that the Ministry was preparing for his deportation. On the 31st of July he was given “Notice of Determination as a Prohibited Immigrant”.

He is, however, challenging his deportation order at the High Court in Lobatse.He has filed an urgent application before Justice Abednico Tafa challenging the Ministry of Health to show cause why he could not be released from the prison clinic to a medical facility preferably Princess Marina Hospital where he can be kept in isolation for the protection of himself and Batswana pending the out come of his appeal against the deportation order.

He also wants the Ministry to show cause why he can not be provided with the necessary Multi drug resistance Tuberculosis treatment pending the outcome of the appeal. Sibanda also challenges the Attorney General, Ministry of Health and the Department of Immigration to show cause why they should not be ordered to pay costs of the application on an attorney client scale and that the order being prayed for be issued urgently. He has, in the meanwhile, appealed against the Immigration department’s decision to deport him arguing that he was improperly declared a prohibited immigrant because he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

The case highlights the hidden and often shocking world inhabited by destitute Zimbabwean immigrants and how failure to tackle the poor health service they endure could create a major public health hazard for Botswana. There aren’t any official figures on numbers of Zimbabwean migrants with TB, but health workers say cases are on the increase. Figures from the Ministry of Health show that TB infections in Botswana are on the rise especially on the back of the HIV\AIDS pandemic. Health officials say Sibanda’s case is far from unique. They explained that while Sibanda had residence papers most Zimbabwean immigrants are illegal and have sunk out of view of normal society. They stay in crowded squats where up to 15 people share one small room and they keep their TB status underground with them.

Health workers are concerned that the government is keen to restrict foreigners to emergency-only public health facilities use, which will simply push the TB problem further underground. “Closing down access to public health services is a worrying development, and, particularly in terms of TB, has serious public health implications.”

good article E

"the rules cannot be bent." what to do.

sigh

Oh no, no way one can bend the rules in Botswana, especially if you are from Zimbabve

quote:

Originally posted by OldE:
Oh no, no way one can bend the rules in Botswana, especially if you are from Zimbabve

Sounds like it is time for those free tb vaccines at the cost of protecting the health hazard of their country. USA was at least smart to do that and not stand on ceremony.

Almost like the bailout.. ****ed if u do and condemned if you dont.

Oh well, the last thing I will worry about is Botswanians not giving free tb vaccines to Zimbabveans, I just posted it as my on-topic contribution to the thread, not more or less

quote:

USA was at least smart to do that and not stand on ceremony.

TB vaccinations are not widely used in the USA, but TB tests are routinely given during physical exams to insure one hasn't been infected by the virus.

Thanks Proud

It was my understanding that usa used to do it in the past , but stopped because tb had basically been eradicated. The resurge of the disease has surfaced again because of undocumented and uninspected sneaking into the country . Imagine if large influx of undocumented with tb come into the country. There have already been large outbreaks reported.

Diseases are one of the main reasons that people need to be inspected to come to the usa.

The article was about Botswana, NOT US !