Is Africa Facing a Bigger Threat Than Colonialism?

The impact of the G8 New Alliance For Food Security and Nutrition (New Alliance) does everything but accomplish what its title suggests. If anything, its false, repressive, spurious existence is a threat to food sovereignty and agro-ecology in Africa and elsewhere.  In other words, predatory capitalism under the pretense of  reducing poverty.

Oxfam found that "both the New Alliance and related policy reforms actually risk marginalizing small-scale agriculture, undermining land tenure security, and endangering the right to food of the most vulnerable people."

Simply put, New Alliance's agenda is the corporate takeover of Africa's food. African governments are reforming laws to benefit multinational corporations like Monsanto in return for western aid and investment. Farmers would be restricted from saving and swapping seeds, and many who buy them would end up in debt. Meanwhile, traditional seed varieties could be lost forever. The law actually says "farmers that use seed varieties claimed under new intellectual property rights by individuals and companies anywhere in the world risk hefty fines or even imprisonment."



According to Lauren McCauley,

“Under the specious claim of delivering "aid to Africa," western governments are backing an initiative—described by some as another form of "colonialism"—that is effectively enabling the corporate takeover of African nations by some of the world’s biggest food and agriculture companies."

Why do we allow the parasitic wealthy and powerful--those who live off the blood, sweat and tears of others, who talk openly about the horrors of third world overpopulation--free reign to decide what's in the best interest of third world people? They have clearly stated that we must reduce that population.  It's insane! Or, perhaps, most of us agree with these predators...as long as it's not us. 

“What small scale farmers need is investment in infrastructure that links them more locally and regionally...Where control and ownership over the means of farming, buying and selling food and the culture of food is held by farmers (and people)—not outside elites." -- Dan Iles, food sovereignty campaigner with Global Justice Now

Links:

Mycotoxins: The Cost of Achieving Food Security and Food Quality

Mycotoxin contamination of foods in Africa: Antinutritional factors

G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition Not Supportive of Small-Scale Food Producers

Corporate influence through the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa

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Association of 34,000 Black Churches Strongly Against Drones.

Apparently, waging the war on terror using terrorist tactics is acceptable to 62% of American citizens, if, in fact, the Pew poll (left) is accurate.

Ironically, for Americans, the very idea of living in a country occupied by another nation's troops, and/or experiencing terror from the skies by  another nation's drone strikes, is unimaginable, and that may be the problem right there,  we, the people can't imagine it. Because the closest we've come to being attacked on our own soil is 9/11, and almost 12 years later, we're far from over it.  Our attitude--at least the people who approve the drone strikes--is one of being above the rule of law.  Not surprising considering the righteous "Manifest Destiny" and "American Exceptionalism" indoctrination inflicted upon us before we could speak in full sentences.

However, the National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), which is comprised of 34,000 churches representing some 15.7 million black Americans from 15 different denominations, slammed President Obama's drone policy as "evil in the Christian tradition."  If only the rest of us felt the same way.

"I do not know what to say after the pronouncement of his evil policy. This policy has led me to a life of prayer for the soul of this administration and for this president. Anyone who has anything to do with formulating a policy like this either in the Bush or Obama administration will have to answer before God one day. May God have mercy on their souls."--NCBI President Rev. Anthony Evans

Consider this.  Supposedly, when President Obama's press secretary was asked why they had killed the 16-year old son of Anwar al-Aulaqi, he responded, because he was the son of Anwar al-Aulaqi. As if that's enough to justify murder.  Sadly, as long as the order to kill comes from the executive branch--the judge, jury and executioner--even on American soil, it's not murder.

"Brennan, currently President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, is the architect and director of the program of drone missile assassinations that is run out of the White House with the personal participation of Obama. Asked squarely, “Could the Administration carry out drone strikes inside the United States?” Brennan replied, “This Administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so.”

This is what is known as a non-responsive answer. It is reasonable to assume that if the answer was “no,” Brennan would simply have written, “no.” Instead, in order to avoid a giving straightforward “yes,” he answered a different question than the one that was asked.

Brennan’s answers to the written questions make clear that there was nothing accidental about his refusal to rule out drone assassinations within the United States at his February 7 confirmation hearing before the Senate committee. It was, rather, an expression of a deliberate policy adopted by the Obama White House and the military/intelligence agencies.

When asked at the hearing whether he believed that the Obama administration could carry out drone assassinations on US soil, Brennan responded that he was determined to “optimize transparency on these issues, but at the same time, optimize secrecy and the protection of our national security.” He thus completely evaded the question, and no member of the committee, Democrat or Republican, pursued the matter further.

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Profit and Politics of Genocide in Central Africa.

What is the real agenda of AFRICOM? Is there a massive loss of life in central Africa orchestrated by western powers? Are Bono, Ben Affleck, and CFR members: Angelina Jolie and George Clooney (Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP)) really the good guys they purport to be? Or merely propaganda tools used in an effort to legitimize the U.S. military’s AFRICOM unit in the region through “humanitarian” interventions?

Keith Harmon Snow, now an independent journalist, after working as a researcher/consultant and investigator of war crimes, human rights and genocide for the United Nations, Genocide Watch and Survivors Rights International--who will never work for the "system" again because he dared to expose what lurks behind the establishment narrative--says there is a massive loss of life in central Africa orchestrated by western powers, that Washington’s corporate interests--vast potential wealth in mining, agricultural commodities and oil--are hidden behind “humanitarian interventions,” and let's not forget, "promoting freedom and democracy." The US has recently invaded Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan. Next up: Mali.

A 2010 UN report charged Rwanda’s army with “committing atrocities that could be classified as crimes of genocide,” backing up a report that came out in 1997. Although, keep in mind, the aforementioned "leaked" U.N. Report on Atrocities in Congo 1993-2003 is a major whitewash of western interests and their involvement in brutalization and mass murder of nearly ten million in the Congo. The primary violence in the Congo began in 1996 with the invasion of the U.S. supporting these forces

In fact, the genocide in the mineral rich Congo is the deliberate result of American and British policy. Since 1996, almost 10 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been slaughtered by Rwandan and Ugandan mercenaries, financed and protected by the United States and Great Britain. Why? The plundering of Congo’s mineral resources in order to sell to multinational corporations, most of them based in the United States and Europe.

Moreover, there is a new, but deceptive, drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Needless to say, helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner is not the goal. Corporate interests have hijacked African food and agricultural policy.

"These companies and foreign governments are primarily interested in producing food for export. Their interventions have done little to improve household food security amongst poor Zambians.

It is time we realised that, amid all the fanfare for a new green revolution in Africa, and the upsurge in donor and corporate interest in African agricultural production, the best way to address food insecurity for the poor — emphasising access and not production — has regressed. Why? The big money, for input providers, agro-processors and traders, is in building more capital-intensive and market-integrated African farming systems. There is little to no profit to be made from eradicating hunger.

The politics of genocide, genocide accusation, genocide denial, and genocide inflation are very important concepts to understand before you can truly grasp the reality of genocide. Then, we can challenge, for example, the officially sanctioned narrative in Rwanda. The people of Central Africa continue to suffer under brutal terrorism. We should be asking: who are the real victims and who are the real criminals, and what really happened in Rwanda? What is happening now in the Democratic Republic of Congo? The genocide that keeps on going, without end in sight.

 

Links:

 Raise Hope for Congo  

PENTAGON PRODUCES SATELLITE PHOTOS OF 1994 RWANDA GENOCIDE

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French President Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union Cause of Libyan War?

The French were one of the first to say there should be a military no-fly zone over Libya. The reasons are threefold. However, I will focus on the Mediterranean Union only.

Unbeknownst to many, in 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had planned to unite the 44 countries that border the Mediterranean in, what he said, was an effort to boost economic, political, and cultural ties with the EU's southern neighbors, and to reinforce the geopolitical weight of France.  In reality, his motivations, more than likely "lie elsewhere".


John Laughland of the Brussels Journal pointed out:

The plan, indeed, bears some resemblance to the “Greater Middle East” project favoured by the American neo-conservative strategists. Although the membership of the two proposed bodies is different (the Greater Middle East encompasses Arabia, Iran, Central Asian states and even Afghanistan and Pakistan) the ideology is the same: supranational and anti-national. The idea is to neutralise the Arab-Israeli conflict by “integrating” the Middle Eastern countries into a single political unit, rather as the Franco-German conflict was allegedly neutralised by the creation of the European Community. For there is nothing the neo-cons want to neutralise more than Arab nationalism.

Even more striking is the resemblance between Sarkozy’s plan and the existing Mediterranean Dialogue set up by NATO in 1994. Numerous Maghreb states have already signed partnership agreements with NATO. In other words, the Mediterranean Union would be but a political superstructure over a military organisation which already exists and which is under US leadership. Sarkozy is known to be extremely friendly to the US and Israel (the Israeli president has just been in Paris, the first head of state to be received with full honours since Sarkozy was elected last year) and his plans therefore resemble those which led to the creation of the original EEC which was also set up on the back of an existing US-led military structure (NATO was created in 1949, the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951).

The goal of Sarkozy’s Club Med is therefore not, after all, to reinforce the geopolitical weight of France, but instead to consolidate the power of NATO and the United States over the Middle East. That is why Germany, America’s senior partner in Europe, was determined to be involved – and that is why Sarkozy has agreed to it. I predict that, in due course, he will agree also to another American policy, the accession of Turkey to the EU.

So, what does this have to do with Libya? Well, it was Colonel Muammar Qadaffi's boycott of the 2008 summit launching the new "Union" in Paris, and his attack on the plan that interfered with the manifestation of Sarkozy's brainchild.  Qaddafi compared Sarkozy's "Union" to the  Roman Empire, and that it will fuel Islamist terrorism and will be regarded as "imperialism" by many in Africa and the Arab world.

"We shall have another Roman empire and imperialist design. There are imperialist maps and designs that we have already rolled up. We should not have them again." -- Col Qadaffi in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, July 9, 2008

Libya is one of only five of Africa’s 54 countries that have not been integrated into U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Links:

Libya warns of disaster if 'Great Man-Made River' hit

Libya warned on Sunday that NATO-led air strikes could cause a "human and environmental disaster" if they damaged the country's massive Great Man-Made River (GMMR) project.

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Bombing Civilians to Save Them?

"Nearly 100 civilians have been killed so far in the airstrikes launched by major Western powers," Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said in the capital Tripoli on Thursday. Really? I wonder how many civilians are dead, almost three days later.

What sort of "humanitarian bombing" campaign kills or injures far more than it saves?   I mean, we're told that Qadhafi forces are bombing the country's hospitals. But, where is the supporting evidence?  Why do we accept what the mainstream media reports as if they're not controlled by the same powers bombing whoever they deem,  profitable?

"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years. Starting with Iraq, Syria, then Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off, Iran." -- General Wesley Clark, March 2, 2007

Links:

Canadian pilots abort bombing over risk to civilians

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The Internet's Undersea World

Click here for larger size image of fibre-optic submarine cable system which also maps out the cable accidentally severed, last year, when a ship's anchor sliced two cables off Egypt, causing internet outages in the Middle East and India.

The map pictured above displays a vast undersea network of fiber optic cables that are the backbone to the entire internet. Miles of these cables span continents, sending data as pulses of light from one destination to another and carry about 95% of voice and telephone traffic. The cable is not evenly distributed between the continents. Until today, East Africa was the only major inhabited coastline excluded from the global broadband map.

In the next year, it is estimated that about ten new undersea connections are expected to serve Africa.

"The opening of a fiber optic cable providing broadband Internet service to millions of people in Southern and Eastern Africa is part of an ambitious plan to expand Web access and help spur the continent’s economy and technology industry.

The cable, built by Seacom, a consortium 75 percent controlled by African investors, is the first of about 10 new undersea connections expected to serve Africa before the middle of next year. The expansion will cost about $2.4 billion and will help connect Africa with Europe, Asia and parts of the Middle East at higher speeds and a lower cost."

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Donate Your Flash Drives To Help Schools in Africa.

Donate your thumb drives, flash drives, or keychain drives, you are not using anymore so they can be put them to good use.

Inveneo "is a non-profit social enterprise whose mission is to get the tools of ICT into the hands of organizations and people who need them most: those in remote and rural communities in the developing world. To do this, Inveneo creates and sells highly affordable and sustainable ICTs that are specifically designed for organizations -- governments, NGOs, private enterprises -- that serve these rural communities with vital services that include education, healthcare, economic development, relief and telecenters. Inveneo's ICTs are designed to overcome challenges that these organizations face.

Since mid-2006, when Inveneo released it's first product, Inveneo and our partners have supplied gear to or completed more than 75 projects in Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Mali, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania and more. These projects will reach over 150 communities and almost 400,000 people directly or indirectly with life-changing ICTs. Our three-year goal is to certify over 100 local ICIPs and jointly complete projects that provide a digital lifeline to thousands of communities, directly or indirectly reaching up to 3,000,000 people in poor, rural areas of the developing world.

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Blog Action Day 2008: What's Going On That We're Not Hearing About?

If Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears and the winners and losers on American Idol can unsettle the reasoning minds, thus diverting our attention away from important current events, imagine the level of distraction as we face the horror and confusion that this fiscal crisis has produced.

As the powers that be rush to "repair" the havoc, that the egregious greed of the powers that be has wrought, by "borrowing" trillions of our dollars to reward themselves; in hopes that they can save our economy, I wonder what else are they up too? Let me rephrase that question without the annoying cynical overtones. What is happening or developing right now, that may affect our lives in the near future, as we focus all of our attention to the plight of our pocketbooks?

Global poverty is one issue that has and will suffer from the lack of attention that they might have otherwise received if not for the current fiscal crisis, especially if rich nations renege on their pledges of aid.

The world's wealthiest nations pledged billions of dollars at a U.N. food summit in June, following a spike in commodities prices that tipped 75 million more people into hunger last year.

But the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said very little of promised aid had been received so far, even though the outlook had darkened for the world's poorest.

Although, considering foreign aid represents 1% of the U.S. federal budget, and that the U.S. ranks last in the percent of gross national product spent on foreign aid - the Department of defense spending 20% of that 1% - it's not as if global poverty is a top priority anyway. However, those people, unfortunate enough to exist in a state of having no money, food, clean water, shelter etc, and most importantly no way of earning the necessities to ensure their survival, will undoubtedly take anything they can get.

Well, what does global poverty have to do with this financial crisis or us? Aside from moral imperative, there is the geopolitical one. As our world shrinks, we can no longer afford to ignore the combination of geographic. and political factors around the world. More and more, those factors will influence us, whether we want them too or not. Existing circumstances of hopelessness, marginalization, impoverishment and conditions where violation of human rights is the norm, are fertile breeding ground for terrorism, disease, backward thinking, and conflict, all of which can spread faster than William "The Refrigerator" Perry can scarf down 40 hotdogs.

What else are we missing?

On a more positive note, “Chinese leaders are expected to allow peasants to buy or sell land-use rights for the first time, a step that could draw hundreds of millions of farmers more firmly into the market economy, now centered around the cities.”

Iran is imposing the nation’s first ever sales tax.

History is being made in Zimbawbwe.

The U.S. and Iraq draft an agreement that will allow U.S. troops to stay until 2011 and gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers for felonies committed off duty.

The Iraqi Government is putting 40 billion barrels of reserves up for grabs in biggest sale ever.

It was always oil. Here's the proof.

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Surviving Globalization,Transforming Self-Interest into Enlightened Self-Interest

Times Atlas:

Africa (30.3 million km) is larger than the combination of China (9.6 million km), US (9.4 million km), Western Europe (4.9 million km), India (3.2 million km) , Argentina (2.8 million km), 3 Scandinavian countries, British Isles.

I always thought a map is a map, but apparently maps can be misleading, as it is very difficult to map out the spherical earth on to a flat surface without distorting the reality. Therefore, assuming most maps are the creation of the Eurocentrist, it comes as no surprise that reality is distorted in favor of the land masses that house "Europeans" (white people) and scale Africa down to the size of the U.S. in some cases.

Why is this important?

Well, since a picture is worth a thousand words, and maps are essentially pictures, it's very important that maps allow us to perceive the relative size of countries and continents in order to get a sense of their comparative importance.

As our world continues to shrink, we can't afford to live as if we are the only ones on the planet. We must create a new belief system based on, at the very least, enlightened self-interest. We must recognize that we benefit most when we can couple our own interests with those of the people around the globe. In some way we, the people, must truly embody collective interests, rather than buying into the illusion that we do, in order to guarantee our future.

Africa is a "gold mine" of natural resources, however, the continent is deteriorating at an alarming rate. For hundreds of years, policy makers and "big business" from developed countries, all around the world, acting in the interest of their people, have and continue to neglect, ignore and rape the continent without much thought for anyone but themselves.

Perhaps if we readjust our "mental maps" to incorporate the sheer size of Africa and its inherent value, we will start to pay more attention to the continent and start to influence our policy makers to protect what some day could be our savior.

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Global Warming to Hit Worlds Poor the Hardest.

Climate Change Summary Says Asia And Africa Will See Danger, Death, And Extinction Of Species Unless Countries Adapt:

Global warming's effects now still may be more pesky than catastrophic. But a new scientific report says that when the Earth gets a few degrees hotter, inconvenience will give way to danger, death and extinction of species.

The world faces increased hunger and water shortages in the poorest countries, massive floods and avalanches in Asia, and species extinction unless nations adapt to climate change and halt its progress, according to a report approved Friday by an international conference on global warming.

The poorest parts of the world, especially Africa and Asia, will be hit hardest, says the summary from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued Friday after a long, contentious editing session.

In a New York Times article, Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics, James Kanter and Andrew C. Revkin report on how climate change is already changing the planet and detail how it will get worse.

"In its most detailed portrait of the effects of climate change driven by human activities, the panel predicted widening droughts in southern Europe and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the American Southwest and Mexico, and flooding that could imperil low-lying islands and the crowded river deltas of southern Asia. It stressed that many of the regions facing the greatest risks were among the world’s poorest."

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One Death a Tragedy...One Million a Statistic...

I had an immediate visceral reaction to "little Mary" a 12-year-old Ugandan girl whose lips were cut off by rebel fighters, and no visceral reaction to the 4 million killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of course, I know that killing 4 million people is so heinous, it's beyond words but apparently it's beyond feeling as well, at least in my case.

Psychological research, reported by Professor Paul Slovic in the March edition of Foreign Policy, suggests we respond most to just one example of suffering. Big numbers don't move us and in fact, the higher the number of people involved in a crisis, the less likely we are to "feel" for each additional death.

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Pope: 'Nothing Positive' From Iraq

In a live televised address, the pontiff said Iraq was being "torn apart by continual slaughter".

Pope Benedict also voiced worry over continuing violence and human suffering in parts of Asia and Africa.

Earlier the pontiff led Easter Sunday Mass before tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the square.

Easter Sunday is the holiest day in the Christian calendar, marking the Resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday.

'Signs of hope'

Speaking from the balcony overlooking the square, Pope Benedict expressed his concern at the level of suffering in the world.

"Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees," he said.

Peace is sorely needed

His remarks came hours after at least 15 people were killed in an explosion in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in the latest violence in Iraq.

But the Pope noted "some signs of hope" in the Middle East in what he called "the dialogue" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Talks between the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have continued despite Israel's boycott of the recently formed Palestinian government of national unity, because it contains the militant Hamas group.

The Pope also expressed fears about the political future of Lebanon, which he said was in serious jeopardy.

'Faces of violence'

The pontiff spoke of the faith of Christians in the risen Christ but he also painted a very sombre picture of a world disfigured by war and terrorism.

He condemned terrorism and the use of religion to justify a "thousand faces of violence".

"Peace is sorely needed," he said.

The Pope said he also looked with apprehension at conditions prevailing in several parts of Africa, including the "catastrophic" humanitarian disaster in Darfur, violence and looting in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the "grievous crisis" in Zimbabwe.

After giving his Easter blessing, the Pope, dressed in gold vestments, greeted pilgrims in more than 60 different languages.

The Pope will spend the next few days at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, before returning to Rome.

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Nations Pledge Not to Use Child Soldiers.

PARIS — African, Asian and South American nations where child fighters have been used in war endorsed a new international agreement Tuesday that commits them to stopping the practice and punishing those who recruit youngsters as combatants.

Some nations hailed the text, which carries moral but no legal weight, as a breakthrough. But others said it may be no more than empty promises and that more than words are needed to rehabilitate children mentally and physically scarred by war.

"We've lost a whole generation of children," said Liberia's deputy minister of education, Hawa Goll-Kotchi. "It's scary."

Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Sudan and Somalia — just some of the nations where children have been recruited as fighters — were among nearly 60 countries that approved the so-called Paris Commitments, although it was not formally signed. All 27 nations of the European Union also endorsed the text. The United States did not, and American officials in Washington couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

At least 250,000 boys and girls are believed to still be fighting in about a dozen conflicts worldwide, according to the United Nations. They are used as soldiers, messengers, spies and porters and sometimes forced to provide sexual services.

The document requires its backers to "spare no effort" to end the use of soldiers younger than 18 and stipulates that countries must demobilize underage fighters, even during wartime. It also says that anyone who recruits children may not receive amnesty under peace agreements.

Ivory Coast's foreign minister, Youssouf Bakayoko, called the pledge a "breakthrough."

"Countries will now have to do their all to make sure this text is respected," he told The Associated Press.

Ivory Coast was one of seven countries monitored under a 2005 U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at preventing child recruitment. The West African nation has been split between the government-controlled south and rebel-held north since a failed coup in 2002 sparked a civil war.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy insisted the document is more than just "good words" and "will have a great political value."

Others were less optimistic.

Former child soldier Ishamel Beah, who made an emotional appeal Monday for strong action to keep children from returning to battle, told AP he fears the text will prove just more "empty promises."

"It's more concrete than past documents and that's good, but I'm worried it won't be properly applied," said Beah, who at 13 joined an armed faction after his mother, father and two brothers were killed in Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s.

On Monday, the now 26-year-old Beah told delegates from 58 countries and about 100 international agencies and non-governmental groups that once he started fighting, "taking a gun and shooting someone was as easy as drinking a glass of water."

He pleaded for rehabilitation programs to help former child soldiers recover from the trauma of the battlefield. Beah himself went through such a program in Sierra Leone's capital. He now lives in New York and has written a book about his experiences.

Participants at the conference also drafted another text — a guideline that gives governments, aid groups and educators concrete recommendations on how best to prevent the recruitment of children and reintegrate former child soldiers into society.

The 31-page document urges caregivers to try to rekindle former fighters' family bonds and offer a wide range of educational and vocational training, from literacy classes to apprenticeships.

Goll-Kotchi, the Liberian deputy minister, said the guidelines are a good step but she is skeptical about the recommendations and holds little hope for rehabilitating many former fighters.

She said Liberia, which is recovering from a 1989-2003 civil war, is grappling with how to return former child soldiers to civilian life. Reinsertion programs like those recommended in the guidelines often create more problems than they solve, she said.

"In communities where the former child soldiers are going through rehabilitation there's a lot of resentment, because people think it's unfair these kids are being rewarded for killing and destroying property while their children get nothing," Goll-Kotchi said.

An estimated 95,000 former child soldiers have taken part in recent demobilization programs in countries from Asia to Latin America, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Congo.

The recommendations also focus on strategies to help girls, who account for nearly 40 percent of recruits in certain armed groups and are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, conference organizers said.

Such girls are frequently rejected by their families and have an especially hard time returning to society. They also have regularly been overlooked in prior rehabilitation programs the world over, organizers said.

As a way of combatting such treatment, the guidelines recommend hiring female staffers throughout the rehabilitation process and making reproductive health care facilities available at rehab sites.

Last week, the International Criminal Court took up the issue of child soldiers by ordering Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga be tried on charges of recruiting children and sending them to kill and be killed in a bloody tribal conflict. The court, set up in 2002, has expanded its definition of war crimes to include the drafting of children under age 15 into armed conflict.

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A "Molecular Condom" against HIV

Vaginal gel liquefies to release an antiviral drug in response to semen

As part of a worldwide project to dramatically curtail the spread of AIDS, researchers have developed a vaginal gel designed to liquefy and release an antiviral drug when exposed to semen. Creators of the "molecular condom," still in very early testing, say the temperature- and pH-sensitive polymer could prove a more efficient way to deliver an anti-HIV drug than normal gels and creams.

"What we hope is that by attacking the virus in semen, we can inactivate it before it has any chance of permeating the tissue," says bioengineer Patrick Kiser of the University of Utah.

Kiser and his colleagues developed a polymer mixture that is liquid at room temperature, but thickens into a gellike coating at body temperature and a pH of 4 to 5, which occurs in the vagina. The researchers designed the gel to liquefy again at neutral PH, because semen neutralizes vaginal PH. Kiser says it can then mix with semen and deliver a desired antiviral payload, perhaps a small molecule or a polymer microbicide (microbe-killing compound).

The molecular condom is part of a global effort to come up with microbicides suspended in creams, gels or other materials to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. Clinical trials are ongoing for at least a dozen different vaginal microbicides, according to the Alliance for Microbicide Development.

The trick, Kiser says, is to introduce such compounds as rapidly and as effectively as possible. "It could really only take minutes for the virus to come into contact with immune system cells," he explains, "so you don't really have a lot of time."

The molecular condom appears to be a relatively nontoxic way of quickly delivering an antiviral drug, according to a study by Kiser and his co-workers published online December 11 by the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The researchers report that it destroyed fewer mouse skin cells in the lab dish than two other products applied vaginally, including the routinely used spermicide nonoxynol-9.

The polymer also released 49 percent of a small dye molecule, which is chemically similar to some microbicides, within five minutes of exposure to a fluid that simulates semen, they found. Kiser warned, however, that researchers still must determine whether the gel causes any potentially dangerous side effects such as inflammation, which would attract immune cells that could serve as added targets for HIV infection.

The gel's staying power is yet to be determined, but Kiser says that based on its viscosity, it may remain in the vagina for up to a day. Retention time is key, he notes: "If a woman has to apply a microbicide right before sex, that's quite inconvenient."

"It's an exciting new way to think about things," says Polly Harrison, director of the Alliance for Microbicide Development. "We want to make these products as user-friendly as possible," and a gel that women could apply well in advance of sex "could be a real advantage."

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