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From the United Nations:

UN agencies concerned over ‘massive displacement’ in Pakistan

The United Nations agencies tasked with protecting refugee and children’s rights today expressed deep concern over the “massive displacement” in north-west Pakistan caused by the widening armed conflict between Government forces and militants.

The provincial government estimates between 150,000 to 200,000 people have already arrived in safer areas of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) over the last few days, with another 300,000 already on the march or about to leave, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

UNHCR noted that those fleeing the latest escalation of hostilities in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat join another 555,000 previously displaced Pakistanis who had fled their homes in the tribal areas and NWFP.

The new influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) will place huge pressure on the resources already shared by around 93,000 people sheltering in 11 UNHCR-supported camps and over 450,000 staying in rental accommodation or host families.

To date, more than 83,000 recent IDPs from Buner, Dir, and Swat have been registered, including almost 5,000 staying in three new camps and more than 78,000 people who are staying outside of camps.

In Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and other urban centres of the Punjab, UNHCR has registered a further 40,000 displaced people mainly from Bajaur, Mohmand and Swat over the past two weeks.

As part of a joint UN response to the influx of people fleeing the fighting in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat over the past week, UNHCR has helped establish three new camps, including Jalala and Shiekh Shehzad camps in Mardan and Yar Hussain in Swabi district.

In the last two days, an increasing number of families from Swat have gone to the Jalala camp, travelling in rickshaws, cars, small trucks and buses with little more than the clothes on their backs, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

New arrivals told UNHCR staff that they had trouble finding transport and had to pay steep prices to hire vehicles. One family of 20 from Buner reported paying the equivalent of $350 to travel to the camp from their home. Another man from Mingora, Swat, drove with his family in his rickshaw a harrowing seven hours to reach the safety of Jalala camp in tears.

Yesterday, a new reception centre – the first of four planned centres – opened on the main Malakand Road at Jalala to give people food, water and information about the camps and registration centres. Plans to provide medical care and transport assistance at the reception centres, as part of the joint UN response, are also underway.

UNHCR is currently responding to the emergency with relief supplies – such as tents, plastic sheets, buckets, jerry cans, and kitchen sets – for 100,000 people, while buying additional supplies for an additional 200,000.

“The majority of those worst affected are children, who have witnessed violence, experienced displacement, and faced interruptions to education and health services,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a news release.

UNICEF noted that it was working closely with its aid partners, as well as the Federal and Provincial governments to provide assistance for people staying with relatives and to support the three new camps established in the last week.

To prevent the spread of disease among children, UNICEF Pakistan is supplying the camps with safe water, sanitation facilities and hygiene kits. The agency has also vaccinated more than 10,000 children under five years of age at transit points, as well as provided ongoing support for orphans and unaccompanied children who are fleeing, including a primary school in one new camp with an enrolment of around 200 children.

The agency also expressed concern for the civilians, especially children, still living in combat zones and “strongly urged all parties to take immediate measures to ensure that children are protected from the effects of armed conflict, and that aid workers and supplies for IDPs and civilians in conflict areas have safe passage.”

The U.N. Reports:

Urgent international scrutiny needed in Sri Lanka, say UN rights experts

A group of independent United Nations experts today called on the Human Rights Council to urgently set up an international inquiry to address the “critical” situation in Sri Lanka amid fighting between the army and Tamil rebels.

“There is an urgent need to establish an international commission of inquiry to document the events of recent months and to monitor ongoing developments,” the experts dealing with summary executions, right to health, right to food and water and sanitation said in a joint statement issued in Geneva.

Philip Alston, Anand Grover, Olivier De Schutter and Catarina de Albuquerque said the current humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka gives cause for deep concern, not only in terms of the number of civilians who have been and continue to be killed, but because of a dramatic lack of transparency and accountability.

“There is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type,” said Mr. Alston, the UN expert on summary executions.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says over 196,000 people have fled the conflict zone, a shrinking pocket of land on the north-east coastline, where clashes continue between Government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), while at least 50,000 people are still trapped there.

The experts stressed that “continuing catastrophic situation of civilians” in Sri Lanka trapped in the midst of the fighting, in an area measuring less than 10 square kilometres, must be immediately addressed.

“These civilians do not have sufficient access to food, essential medical supplies or services and safe water and sanitation. Even if they do escape death or injury at the hands of the hostile parties, their continued presence in this area without access to these basic rights is an effective death sentence,” declared the experts.

They said shipments of food and medicine to the so-called ‘no-fire zone’ have been “grossly insufficient” over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as chlorine tablets.

The experts noted that as a result of the “blackout on independent information sources,” it is impossible to verify any of the Government’s claims as to the number of casualties to date or as to the steps that it says it is taking in order to minimize the further killing of innocent civilians, and ensure aid delivery.

“When people manage to escape, they reportedly continue to face scant supplies, entirely insufficient access to adequate medical treatment and severely overcrowded hospitals, providing no relief to the horrors they had been living,” said Mr. Grover, the UN expert on the right to health.

Mr. De Schutter, the UN expert on the right to food, added that access to food has also been hampered by arduous and lengthy registration procedures for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Meanwhile, Ms. de Albuquerque, the UN expert on water and sanitation, voiced concern about “water shortages reported at Omanthai and at most of the transit sites as well as inadequate sanitation facilities, which put the health and lives of the population at further risk.”

The group called on the Sri Lankan Government to provide “convincing evidence” to the international community that it is respecting its obligations under human rights and international humanitarian law.

They added that it is clear that the LTTE, for its part, has acted in “flagrant violation” of the applicable norms by preventing civilians from leaving the conflict area and having reportedly shot and killed those trying to flee.

It would be naive to imagine that the planners in Beijing are unaware that Mongolia will have a coastline. They can read, and they have contributed to the IPCC reports. Of course the movers and shakers in the cabinet there are mostly engineers whereas in the USA, their counterparts are mostly lawyers.

I fear that the Chinese appetite for windmills may absorb all production capacity worldwide. Just as the German and Japanese initiatives absorbed most solar panel production for a while. The Chinese were, after all, using more than half of all the cement produced in the world not so long ago.

One hundred Gigawatts of wind by 2020. And a carbon tax. Read all about it:

http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26826&Itemid=31

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5401CN20090501?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

Read The Whole Article and Watch A Video

Over 1,500 farmers in the agricultural Indian state of Chattisgarh have committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure. The state was hit hard by falling water levels.

Bharatendu Prakash, of the Organic Farming Association of India, said that, “Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.”

Mr. Prakash added that the government needs to take up the cause of the poor farmers just as they fight for a strong economy.

Washington, DC — An inside source has said that Bank Of America is likely to need an additional $34 billion. This comes after their CEO, Kenneth Lewis, said, “We absolutely don’t think we need additional capital.”

The stress test is a U.S.A. government plan to examine the health of banks. The results expected to be made public late on May 7, 2009.

Texas Straight Talk – A Weekly Column
Rep. Ron Paul (R) – TX 14
Join the Campaign For Liberty

This week, concerns about swine flu have dominated the media and many government officials. While the American people should be made aware of infectious diseases and common sense preventative measures, much of the hysterical reaction from government only serves to remind us how detrimental to your health it can be when government plays doctor.

As a physician, I have yet to see any evidence that justifies the current level of alarm. Influenza typically kills around 36,000 people every year in this country and hospitalizes a couple hundred thousand. So far there are only a handful of confirmed deaths attributable to this strain, and most of those sickened have or will fully recover. Every death is tragic, but I see no reason to deal with this flu outbreak any differently than we typically deal with any other flu season. Instead, government in its infinite wisdom is performing even more invasive screening at airports, closing down schools and sporting events, and causing general panic.

We had a similar outbreak in 1976, with only 1 death from the flu, but mandatory vaccinations killed at least 25 before the program was abandoned.

When government gets involved in healthcare decisions, the cure is so often worse than the illness. And yet, this administration will likely consolidate the government’s power over your health with sweeping new reforms that are already being discussed in the Senate.

Government has not improved healthcare, and has not made it cheaper. Quite the opposite; costs have skyrocketed, and quality has gone down in many ways. Gone are the days of the country doctor making house calls, or of voluntarily giving away medical services at charity hospitals. The bureaucratization of healthcare these past 45 years has made things worse. It saddens me as a doctor that physicians are less and less accountable to patients, but more and more accountable to government red tape, insurance companies and attorneys. It seems so perverse to me that important medical decisions that will directly affect the lives of all or nearly all Americans are being hashed out behind closed doors in Washington rather than between doctors and patients.

There is perhaps nothing more valuable to a human being than his or her health, which is why I’ve always considered the practice of medicine so crucial to our well-being. Any intrusion by government into the privacy and trust between doctor and patient is detrimental to the art of medicine. It distorts the whole dynamic of who the client really is when doctors must answer more to government or insurance companies than to their patients. The best solutions to improving quality and lowering costs of healthcare would be measures that put decisions back into the hands of patients and doctors, where they rightfully belong. I have introduced HR 1495 The Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act, which promotes health savings accounts and tax deductibility of healthcare costs as an important step in this direction.

The unfortunate reality of this recent health crisis, as with any crisis, is that it presents opportunities that the unscrupulous will take advantage of, while the fearful become more compliant.

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