Afghanistan: UN reports US-led air strike killed 90 civilians

Dixeron os políticos “occidentais”, liderados pola OTAN e os Estados Unidos, que ían a Afganistán para levar paz, democracia, liberdade… Os 60 nenos e 30 adultos que segundo parece morreron baixo as bombas estadounidenses non terán xa nada diso. A fonte ten unha certa credibilidade, por ser un representante das Nacións Unidas. A noticia aparecía así no diario británico The Guardian (27 – VIII – 2008):

“Final straw for Afghan leader after child death toll in air strike hits 60″

Karzai orders new rules for all foreign military activity. 90 civilians killed in worst incident since 2001.

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

Sixty children were killed in air strikes by US-led coalition warplanes in western Afghanistan last week, a UN investigation has found. UN investigators said they discovered “convincing evidence” that a total of 90 Afghan civilians died in the incident.

The toll, potentially the worst since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, could wreck relations between the Afghan government and the Nato-led coalition forces, which were already under severe strain over civilian casualties and strategy in the counter-insurgency against the Taliban.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has ordered that any military operation by foreign forces on its territory will be subject to a new set of rules enforceable under international law.

Kai Eide, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan who ordered the investigation, said the incident could undermine the faith of the Afghan people in international efforts to stabilise the country.

Military sources said the air strikes last Thursday on the Shindand district of Herat province were carried out not by the Nato force attempting to bolster Karzai’s government, but as part of a parallel US mission targeting al-Qaida and Taliban militants, called Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

US officials initially said that the air strikes were aimed at a Taliban stronghold and had killed 30 jihadis. An OEF spokesman in Kabul said last night that an investigation into the incident had been launched last Saturday and was still under way.

In his report, Eide said investigators from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that up to eight houses in the village of Nawabad had been destroyed in the raids and many others damaged.

“Investigations by Unama found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men. Fifteen other villagers were wounded or otherwise injured,” Eide wrote.

“This is matter of grave concern to the United Nations, I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations. The impact of such operations undermines the trust and confidence of the Afghan people in efforts to build a just, peaceful, and law-abiding state.”

Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for the Afghan president, said Karzai had ordered that all foreign military operations be governed by an internationally enforceable “status of forces agreement”.

“The patience of the Afghan people has run out. We no longer can afford to see the killing of our children,” Hamidzada said.

The incident comes at a fraught time for western forces in Afghanistan, after a week of high casualties and deep splits within Nato on sharing the burden of the Afghan conflict.

Eide was appointed to bring some coordination to the international community’s disparate efforts. But last night he warned that those efforts were in danger of being crippled by public mistrust.

In a harshly worded statement, he said: “I want to remind all parties engaged in the conflict that the protection of civilians must be their primary concern; they must respect their duties under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect the people we are here to serve.”

Xa está “na rúa” a versión 3.1.2 do FileZilla (cliente FTP)

Xa está disponible a nova versión estable (3.1.2) do “cliente” FTP libre e gratuíto FileZilla. Para baixalo, esta é a páxina web:

FileZilla: the free FTP solution.

India: drug trials as a business, babies as guinea pigs

Prescindindo do sensacionalismo que pode contaminar estes titulares, e de que cada medio pode citar ou omitir nomes de determinadas empresas farmacéuticas por intereses corporativos, o problema de fondo é serio: os ensaios clínicos de fármacos son un negocio e “deslocalízase” a países como China e India. Neste caso parece que as mortes non foron causadas polos experimentos, pero tamén se detectan abusos intolerables na práctica médica. Para as familias, algún destes ensaios é como mínimo unha estafa. Os nenos son cobaias, “guinea pigs”, ou como din en portugués, “porquinhos-da-índia”…

Copio un extracto da información publicada polo diario británico The Times (20 – VIII – 2008):

“Drug trials in India under investigation after 49 babies die at leading hospital”

Rhys Blakely in Bombay

Forty-nine babies have died in drug tests at one of India’s top hospitals, raising concerns that ethical standards are being compromised as the country becomes the world’s leading destination for clinical trials.

The deaths occurred over a period of 30 months at the Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), an elite medical college and public hospital renowned for providing low-cost treatment to the poor.

The victims were among the 4,142 infants who were used in a total of 42 clinical trials — one of the final stages of developing a new drug — at AIIMS since January 2006, many for Western companies. Of the children used in the trials, 2,728 were aged under a year old.

The mortality rate among the babies, many of whom were seriously ill before they became part of the clinical trials, was 1.2 per cent — significantly below the 4 per cent for all patients treated at the hospital.

However the age of those selected for testing has shocked many in India and there are fears that the increasingly lucrative drug-testing industry may be cutting corners because of a shortfall of staff trained in medical ethics and best practice.

Manish Tiwari, a spokesperson for the Congress party, which heads India’s coalition Government, said: “The practice of using infants like guinea-pigs for drug testing must end.”

Campaign groups have voiced concerns that the poor, often illiterate, parents who make use of the publicly subsidised healthcare that is available at institutions such as AIIMS do not understand the implications of putting forward children to test new drugs.

Rahul Verma, of the Uday Foundation for Congenital Defects and Rare Blood Groups, which exposed the AIIMS deaths after a request under freedom of information laws, said: “If you are rich in this country you go to a private doctor. You certainly don’t put your child up to be experimented on.”

India has become the leading destination for international pharmaceutical companies to outsource clinical trials, largely because of the diverse genetic pool offered by its population and the low cost of doing business.

Clinical trials on human beings are forecast to become a £1 billion-a-year industry in India by 2010. According to the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, GlaxoSmithKline, the London-listed pharmaceutical giant, and Johnson & Johnson, its US-based peer, are the two leading groups engaged in testing new drugs in India, each conducting 22 trials over the past year.

There is no suggestion that either company is involved in the testing that led to the deaths. [...]

About 139 new trials were ousourced to India last year, putting it well ahead of the second-placed China, which had 98. The market value for clinical trials outsourced to India is estimated to stand at about £150 million, having increased by 65 per cent last year. It is expected to hit between £750 million and £1 billion in the next two years.

Documents showed that Shire, the British-based group, was named by the hospital as being among the five leading testers of drugs at AIIMS. [...]

Copio tamén un extracto da información publicada polo diario español El País (28 – VIII – 2008):

“Medio centenar de bebés mueren en India en ensayos médicos”

Diversas organizaciones acusan a las grandes farmacéuticas de usar a los ciudadanos de ese país como “cobayas” para probar medicamentos que luego comercializan en Occidente.

EFE. Nueva Delhi.

Al menos 49 bebés han muerto desde enero de 2006 en 42 ensayos clínicos efectuados en el Instituto de Ciencias Médicas (AIIMS, por sus siglas en inglés) de India, uno de los más prestigiosos centros públicos del país. El Gobierno se ha visto obligado a abrir una investigación tras las denuncias de diversas organizaciones que aseguran que las multinacionales farmacéuticas se aprovechan de la pobreza y el analfabetismo en ese país para usar a sus habitantes como “cobayas”. Tampoco ha contribuido a calmar la polémica el comentario que hizo la semana pasada a la prensa el ministro de Sanidad, Abumani Ramadoss, quien también es presidente del AIIMS, cuando dijo que ésta es “una célebre institución de investigación” y que “los niños habrán muerto por las enfermedades que ya debían de sufrir”.

El presidente de la ONG Uday Fundation, Rahul Verma, dio la voz de alarma sobre las muertes, lo que forzó hace ocho días al Ministerio de Salud a exigir la apertura de una investigación, a cargo de un panel médico del propio Instituto. A la denuncia de Verma se sumó la del experto farmacéutico Chandra Gulhati, editor del Índice de Especialidades Médicas, quien observó lagunas y opacidades en las informaciones del AIIMS sobre lo ocurrido.

Gulhati puso el acento en que los niños fueron utilizados para probar dos medicamentos contra la hipertensión. “Estas medicinas, Valsartan (producido por Novartis) y Olmesartan (de Daiichi Sankyo), se prescriben a personas mayores de 18 años; están contraindicadas para niños”, ha asegurado a Efe el farmacéutico. “¿Cómo pueden probarlas en niños de un año? No sólo no es ético, sino inédito”, ha denunciado. Gulhati se ha preguntado si acaso la hipertensión “es un problema común en los niños de India”. “Porque, si no lo es, ¿por qué hacer las pruebas en India y poner a sus niños en peligro sin beneficio alguno?; ¿por qué los niños indios son utilizados como cobayas?”.

Las sospechas de Gulhati se fundamentan en el hecho de que los medicamentos probados ya tienen genéricos indios y no se pueden patentar en este país, donde los ensayos clínicos son infinitamente más baratos que en Occidente y el consentimiento de padres analfabetos más fácil de conseguir. “Es obvio que estas pruebas se hacen [en India] para prorrogar las patentes en Occidente sin ningún beneficio para India”, ha manifestado. Las compañías extranjeras, ha abundado, “están simplemente aprovechándose de la pobreza y la ignorancia en India”. [...]

Afghanistan: free Aafia Siddiqui’s 11-year-old son

Human Rights Watch (HRW) publicou onte unha nota de prensa centrada no caso dun neno de 11 anos, Ahmed Siddiqui, detido en Afganistán xunto coa súa nai, a quen se acusa de delictos relacionados co terrorismo. Ahmed, a pesar da súa idade, pasou a ser custodiado polos servizos de “intelixencia” de Afganistán, famosos pola súa brutalidade.

A nota de prensa leva por título “Afghanistan: Free Aafia Siddiqui’s 11-Year-Old Son. Child Is Too Young to Be Treated as Criminal Suspect”. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

The Afghan government should immediately relinquish 11-year-old Ahmed Siddiqui to the custody of his family, HRW said today. Siddiqui, a US citizen, is believed to be the son of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman held on US federal charges in New York.

The two were reportedly arrested together in Afghanistan last month.

According to an Afghan Interior Ministry official quoted in the Washington Post, Ahmed Siddiqui was held briefly by the Interior Ministry after the arrest, and then transferred to the custody of the Afghan National Security Directorate (NDS), the country’s intelligence agency. His current whereabouts are unknown. The NDS is notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees.

“Under Afghan and international law, Ahmed Siddiqui is too young to be treated as a criminal suspect,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at HRW. “He should never have been transferred to the custody of Afghanistan’s abusive intelligence agency.”

Afghan police reportedly arrested Aafia Siddiqui and her son in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on July 17, 2008. US federal prosecutors allege that the day after her arrest, while in Afghan custody, she grabbed a gun from the floor and fired it at a team of US soldiers and federal intelligence agents. In August, she was charged with assaulting and trying to kill US officials.

In a letter sent recently to Aafia Siddiqui’s family, US prosecutors said photos and DNA tests strongly suggested that the boy arrested with Siddiqui was her son Ahmed.

The federal complaint against Aafia Siddiqui states that the Afghan police officers who arrested her found suspicious items in her handbag, including “documents describing the creation of explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons involving biological material and radiological agents.” Siddiqui’s lawyers reject the official account, suggesting that the charges against Siddiqui are a sham.

Whether or not his mother is implicated in criminal acts, Ahmed Siddiqui should not be held responsible. Under both Afghan and international law, he is too young to be considered criminally responsible for his mother’s alleged acts.

According to Afghanistan’s Juvenile Code, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 13. [...]

Iran: sixth juvenile offender executed this year

Human Rights Watch (HRW) e Amnistía Internacional (AI) publicaron antonte notas de prensa condenando a execución en Irán de Behnam Zare, quen era menor de idade cando se cometeu o delicto polo que foi sentenciado á pena de morte.

A nota de prensa de HRW leva por título “Iran: Executions of Juvenile Offenders Rising. Iran Executes Sixth Juvenile Offender This Year, 26th Since 2005″. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

Clarification: According to his lawyer, Behnam Zare was born on May 24, 1989. This would make him 15 years old at the time of the offense using the international (Gregorian) calendar (he would be 16 years old at the time of the offense under the calendars commonly used in Iran). International law strictly prohibits executions of persons who were under 18 years old at the time of the offense.

Calling Iran’s execution on August 26, 2008 of juvenile offender Behnam Zare abhorrent, HRW urged the Iranian judiciary to immediately commute the sentences of more than 130 other prisoners facing death for crimes committed while children.

Zare is the sixth juvenile offender Iran has executed this year. No other country is known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. Since January 2005, Iran has executed at least 26 juvenile offenders. During the same period, only four other countries – Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan – are known to have executed any juvenile offenders, with a combined total of six such executions in the four countries.

“Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders” said Clarisa Bencomo, researcher on children’s rights in the Middle East at HRW. “Everywhere else, countries are moving to end this abhorrent practice, but in Iran the numbers of death sentences seem to be increasing.”

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran is obligated to prohibit executions of persons under 18 at the time of the crime. [...]

Copio tamén un extracto da nota de prensa de AI:

On 26 August, Behnam Zare` was hanged in Adelabad prison, in the south-western city of Shiraz. Neither his parents nor his lawyer were notified prior to his execution being implemented, as required under Iranian law.

Behnam Zare’ was convicted of a murder that took place on 21 April 2005. During an argument with a man named Mehrdad he swung a knife, wounding Mehrdad in the neck. Mehrdad later died in hospital. At the time of the murder Behnam Zare` was 15 years old.

Behnam Zare` was detained on 13 November 2005; Branch 5 of Fars Criminal Court sentenced him to qesas (retribution) for premeditated murder. The case went to appeal before the Supreme Court where the sentence was upheld. The verdict was then passed to the Office for Implementation of Sentences.

On 5 February 2008, the order for the implementation of his sentence was approved by Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Head of the Judiciary. On or around 11 February 2008, the Head of the Judiciary ordered a second attempt to negotiate payment of diyeh (“blood money”) with the family of Mehrdad.

This year, according to information available to AI, Iran has executed at least 227 people, including six juvenile offenders. Since 1990 Iran has executed at least 37 juvenile offenders, eight of them in 2007. No other country is known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008.

The situation of juvenile offenders facing execution in Iran has reached a crisis level, with at least 132 juvenile offenders known to be on death row, although the true number could be much higher. [...]

Enlace relacionado:

• Coalición Mundial contra a Pena de Morte

EU pays for, then ignores study on copyright extension

Copio un extracto da noticia aparecida onte en ars technica. Fala dun informe sobre a extensión do copyright solicitado e pagado pola Comisión Europea e logo silenciado porque argumenta en contra dos intereses das discográficas:

“EU pays for, then ignores study on copyright extension”

The European Union wants to add 45 years to the current 50-year copyright on musical recordings, arguing that aging performers can’t afford to be cut off from sources of income just when they need them the most. In defense of this plan, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy’s proposal said that no external expertise on the matter was required and, furthermore, that the (music-industry-provided) data he already had said the plan was a good one. Now, a prominent European academic is furious that his work —which the European Commission requested and paid for— has been totally ignored by the very Commission that signed off on the piece and published it.

Professor P. Bernt Hugenholtz, Ph.D, heads the Institute for Information Law (known as IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. IViR was commissioned to produce two major studies on EU copyright issues back in 2005, and the reports duly appeared in 2006 and 2007. Hugenholtz and his team of experts concluded, among other things, that a copyright term extension would be a bad idea with costs for consumers, competitors, and society as a whole. (The team turned some of this work into an academic paper [PDF] that appeared this year.)

Despite the work, which was signed off on by the European Commission and duly published on the website of the Internal Market and Services directorate, Commissioner McCreevey’s term-extension proposal (PDF) did not mention it. The proposal collected responses for the idea from the usual sources (music publishers, performers, collecting societies) and responses against the idea, also from the usual sources (libraries, consumers, public domain companies, telecoms). How to weigh them all? Not through the use of expert opinion, apparently. Under the bullet point “Collection and use of expertise,” the proposal simply noted that “there was no need for external expertise.”

Hugenholtz doesn’t mince his words in an open letter (PDF) to Commissioners (noted by UK legal site OUT-LAW). Although he recognizes that academic experts won’t see their words translated directly into policy, he still does expect that the ideas the Commission itself approved would “be given the appropriate consideration by the Commission and be duly referenced in its policy documents, in particular wherever the Commission’s policy choices depart from our studies’ main recommendations.”

In fact, Hugenholtz goes on to say, the whole process “seems to reveal an intention to mislead the council and the Parliament, as well as the citizens of the European Union. In doing so the Commission reinforces the suspicion, already widely held by the public at large, that its policies are less the product of a rational decision-making process than of lobbying by stakeholders.” [...]

Filippo Azzaiolo: “Vorrei che tu cantassi una canzone”

Filippo Azzaiolo foi un músico boloñés de cuxa vida non se coñece apenas nada. Da súa obra chegáronnos os tres libros de villotte alla padoana a catro voces, publicados entre 1557 e 1569 baixo o título de Villotte del fiore.

Unha das pezas máis famosas de Azzaiolo, “Chi passa per sta strada”, serviulle ó grande compositor inglés William Byrd como base para unha obra súa.

Neste vídeo canta o Ensemble Vocale “Secolo XXI” do Centro Attività Musicale, dirixido por Eduardo Franco Rondina. A peza que interpretan xoga coas sílabas do solfexo, que ocultan unha mensaxe “erótico-festiva”:

O texto tomeino do marabilloso disco “Gentil madonna”, gravado no 1993 polo grupo London Pro Musica baixo a dirección de Bernard Thomas:

Vorrei che tu cantassi una canzone
quando mi stai sonando la viola,
e che dicessi “fa mi la mi sol la”.

Vorrei lo basso far col violone,
tutto di contrapunto alla spagnuola,
e che dicessi “fa mi la mi sol la”.

Esta peza non a encontrei, pero hai varias transcripcións de obras de Filippo Azzaiolo na Choral Public Domain Library.

Schelle: “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt” (cantata)

Ata hoxe descoñecido para min, o compositor Johann Schelle (1648 – 1701) foi alumno de Heinrich Schütz e ocupou o posto de Thomaskantor en Leipzig, o mesmo que ocuparía anos despois Johann Sebastian Bach.

O texto desta marabillosa cantata, datada entre 1683 e 1684, usa o de Lazarus Spengler (1479 – 1534), “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt”, con interpolacións engadidas que non puiden identificar. Apenas distingo as verbas “¡Ábrete!” (Hefata) e “Er hat alles wohl gemacht!” que pertencen ó evanxello de Marcos (capítulo 7), onde se conta que Xesús Cristo fixo que un xordo oíse e falase.

A interpretación é unha marabilla, como a música: Musica Fiata e La Capella Ducale dirixidos por Roland Wilson.

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