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POPSStaying alive: the women who are immune to Aids This is a long piece, and it's difficult in places. But it's worth it. More from the piece. I lay down to test the mattress: it was lumpy and totally unyielding, not the sort of place one would want to spend much time, which seemed a little odd, given the purpose of this room. Agnes Munyiva saw my wince, laughed and patted the bed. 'You need it to be hard, because otherwise you could get hurt when the men are pushing on you,' she explained. The mattress, stuffed with lumpy cotton and resting on a plain metal frame, fills most of her room, just one metre by two. The walls are made of mud, the roof of scraps of tin. The air has a tang from the raw sewage and rotting food scraps in the alley outside, and Agnes tries to keep the clouds of flies at bay with a crisp white muslin curtain in the doorway. Remnants of linoleum, pieced together like a quilt, cover most of the dirt floor. She has a kerosene burner for making tea and a gas lantern.
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POPS40% of Zimbabweans mentally ill And our fearless leader Thabo Mbeki said last week that the ills of Zimbabwe are greatly exaggerated. (This despite the fact that our auithorities cannot stop the border rush as thousands of Zimbabweans cross illegally into South Africa every day) But please note, this is the same man who claims that HIV does NOT cause AIDS - this as South Africans are dropping like flies from the disease. Sometimes I wonder whether there are any sane people living in sub-Saharan Africa. Oy!!!!!
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POPSObama's Brother Lives In A Slum In Nairobi Now, the Italian press discovered Barack Obama's younger brother George in a slum hut in Nairobi. He is the son of Barack Obama Sr. and Jael. . Half brother George is not pictured and was the son of Barack's father and an unknown Kenyan woman. Obama's younger brother George was discovered in Kenya living in a hut. He says last year during elections 6 people were hacked to death in his neighborhood. The Telegraph reported: The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi. Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender. "No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month." According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack.
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POPS24 hours in pictures - Mar 28th 7 Chuzom, Bhutan: Indian women labourers carry rocks while working on a road widening project. Tens of thousands of migrant workers, mostly Indians, do the hard manual jobs that Bhutanese shun, such as building roads and construction 2 Baghdad, Iraq: Supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shout slogans during a protest against a crackdown on Shia militia in Basra and Baghdad by Iraqi government forces 14 London, UK: A work of art entitled Washed Up Fingers by Emma Donovan. It is part of a collection of work from 60 finalists entered in the BlindArt: Sense & Sensuality competition at the Henry Moore gallery, Royal College Of Art 13 Moscow, Russia: A model displays a creation by Antonina Shapovalova at a fashion show
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POPSThe Irish Invented American Slang: Jazz, Dude,
The Secret Language of the Crossroads: How the Irish Invented Slang. Irish words and phrases are scattered all across the American language, regional and class dialects, colloquialisms, slang, and specialized jargons (like gambling), in the same way that Irish-Americans have been scattered across the crossroads of North America for five hundred years. Cassidy traces the hidden history of how Ireland fashioned America, not just linguistically, but through the gambling underworld, urban street gangs, and the powerful political machines that grew out of them. In a series of essays, including: "Decoding the Gangs of New York," "How the Irish Invented Poker and American Gambling Slang," "The Sanas (Etymology) of Jazz," "Boliver of Brooklyn," and in a first dictionary of Irish-american vernacular, Cassidy provides the hidden histories of so-called slang, and words with unknown origin—words that define the American language and culture: scam, slum, snazzy, sucker, swell, poker, daddy-o
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POPSEvery third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency warns Very few countries have recognised this critical situation and very little effort is going into providing jobs or services. he authors roundly blamed laissez-faire globalisation and "neo-liberal" economic policies imposed on poor countries by global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation for much of the damage caused to cities over the past 20 years. In a form of colonialisation that is probably more stringent than the original, many developing countries have become... suppliers of raw commodities to the world, and fall further and further behind. The authors say people are encouraged to move to the cities by factors including the privatisation of public services, job losses, and the removal of subsidies and tax breaks from key industries. Such effects, they say, increase inequality, and make sure that those who move to the cities remain in deep poverty.
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POPSflying toilets i used to work in a health sector programme in kenya - flying toilets were a big issue on our agenda. it is good to see that this problem is now reaching a wider audience. this is just one of many problems faced by slum dwellers - but a far-reaching one encompassing economic, health and security issues we often take for granted.
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POPSThe Waste-Pickers of Delhi The original Delhi recyclers have turned garbage into cash for decades. Now, a carbon-credit-generating incinerator may put them out of business.
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POPSThai politics laid bare by a rapier wit The jaded view of Thai politicians sounds like an apt description of our own politics, at least in the US and Canada, although things here may not be as grim as they are in Thailand. More from the source: "The new constitution. Can it really bring a positive change for Thailand? One fervently hopes, but history shows that every time new ideas and ways of life arise, a backlash of the old ways rears its head and gobbles the change. Indeed, those who are superior to us in background, breeding or station have absolutely no desire to see any changes at all. In fact they would prefer that we did not even discuss such things and are prepared to take any necessary measures to ensure that the rest of us desist from doing so."
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POPS"Honest Ed" Mirvish R.I.P. Ed Mirvish. I may not know the entire expanse of his work and contributions, but I've seen his contributions to this city. My condolences to the family.
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