Friday, September 4, 2015

KABULA NKARANGO MASANJA GOES HOME TO TANZANIA

1st of Tanzanian albino kids with missing limbs goes home

Associated Press

Associated Press Videos

New Hope For Africa's Hunted Albino Children

New Hope For Africa's Hunted Albino Children
Lição De Baião (Video)
NEW YORK (AP) — Kabula Nkarango Masanja returned home to Tanzania with a new American prosthetic arm replacing the limb that was chopped off with a machete by followers of African witchcraft.

She's one of Tanzania's children with albinism, a condition that leaves people with little or no pigment in their skin, hair or eyes. Their severed body parts are used in potions witch doctors believe bring wealth and good luck. The soft-spoken 17-year-old Kabula is now one of the lucky ones.

Doctors at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Philadelphia recently created new artificial limbs for Kabula and four other youngsters. And New York City resident Elissa Montanti provided housing about two hours away in the borough of Staten Island and organized all their daily, medical and travel needs.
Kabula boarded a plane Tuesday at Kennedy Airport, heading to Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam. She'd been in the United States since June with the four other children, ages 5 to 15, who also were fitted with prosthetics.

"God be with you till we meet again," she wrote neatly on a piece of paper left for Montanti and the Global Medical Relief Fund, the charity she founded.

Montanti, who lives up the street from the charity's "Dare to Dream" house, has spent years flying in children missing limbs from dozens of crisis zones including Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.
"But I have never, ever been so pained as watching these children," says the 62-year-old former radiation technician.

While the 200 or so youths Montanti has helped were victims of land mines, earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters, "this is deliberate" she said of the witchcraft victims.

Lacking natural pigmentation, people with albinism look almost white — ghosts of departed humans, according to witch doctors who order body parts to be hacked off: hair, nails, teeth, tongues, hands, feet, even genitals. More than 200 witch doctors have been arrested so far in the killings of Tanzanians with albinism. The government outlawed witch doctors last year.

Still, attacks continue; at least eight were recorded in Tanzania in the past year.
There's another, even more cruel twist.
Some parents are collaborators because "they still believe their children are cursed," says Ester Rwela, a social worker who accompanies the children and translates their Swahili language.

The father of 5-year-old Baraka Cosmas Lusambo was arrested after part of the little boy's right arm was sliced off last March amid ear-piercing screams.

Tanzanian diamond dealers, businessmen and politicians have paid as much as $75,000 to hunt albino people, says Rwela. "Elections are high season for the witch doctors," she says. "And people with albinism live in fear."

But the kids' lives aren't consumed by the monstrosities.
"Guess what? They're still capable of loving," says Montanti, who constantly holds their hands and hugs them.
them to Philadelphia to fine-tune the prostheses and learn to use them.
Emmanuel Festo Rutema, a 13-year-old missing his left arm and several fingers on his right hand, also goes to a dentist to replace the front teeth knocked out as a witchcraft prize. Attackers tried to cut out his tongue but only damaged it.

On a summer afternoon in the Staten Island home, the rooms are alive with laughter.
"Baraka Obama!"

That's the nickname his friends jokingly call the small boy. He cracks a shy smile, adding, "I don't know who Obama is."
On the sofa, Emmanuel is playing cards with 12-year-old Mwigulu Matonange Magesa, who's wearing a hooked extension of his left arm to pick up the cards. It's an easier tool than the prosthetic hand he hasn't yet mastered.

Kabula is studying for the school exam she faces after returning to Dar es Salaam, where she and the other four have been living in a "safe house" far from their impoverished villages.

"God says forgive your enemies, but as a human being, I cannot forgive them, because they can do this again," says the teen, whose right arm was cut off to the armpit.
She wants to become a human rights lawyer.

At Kennedy, Kabula wiped tears from her eyes, crestfallen at the prospect of leaving her friends and the safety of New York.
"But I told her, 'this is not the end, it's only a bright new beginning,'" says Montanti.
The other children are leaving in late September. And they'll be back next year for new prostheses matching their growth.
___
Online:
Global Medical Relief Fund: http://www.gmrfchildren.org

ALLIANCE FOR CHANGE AND TRASPARENCY [ACT-WAZALENDO] PARTY TO REVIVE PRINCIPLES OF UJAMAA {SOCIALISM} !!

 

BY QUEENTER MAWINDA
4th September 2015
 
  To revive 'some' principles of Ujamaa
Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo) presidential candidate Anna Mghwira stresses a point during an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo) presidential candidate Anna Mghwira yesterday vowed to nationalise some “industries” if she is voted into power next month.

She said her party would do so in reliving Founding President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s socialist ideology and ACT-Wazalendo’s own Tabora Declaration and election manifesto.

Mghwira, the only female candidate for Tanzania’s presidency in the October 25 General Election, said the move would seek to alleviate poverty and improve the country’s economy. 

“The party is bent on reviving our country’s socialist ideology,” she said in the exclusive interview with this paper in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

She clarified, though, that her party was not advocating “blanket complete or blind nationalisation of private property,” adding: “But it is our wish to revive some Ujamaa principles and restore social justice, accountability, equality and leadership ethics.”

Mghwira said her government would nationalise some industries in a bid to ensure proper supervision of the country’s natural and other resources in order to develop a self-reliant economy. 

“We want to put the economy in the hands of the people,” she said, elaborating: “Every citizen has the right to benefit from our God-given resources instead of helplessly looking on as the resources are enjoyed by a few people.”

She said the move would go hand in hand with stepped-up participation of women in the economy, noting: “It is crucial that women across Africa form a platform that will bring them to one table at which they will discuss the challenges they face and how to meet them.”. 
“Women all over the continent are facing similar challenges especially in politics,” she noted.

On a different plane, she said Tanzania’s economic development was being undermined by incompetence and irresponsible people in positions of authority. 

“My government will hold accountable all irresponsible and corrupt leaders,” she said, adding: “Patriotism is a scarce item among civil servants... Many leaders are thinking only of themselves instead of the country and the nation.”

ACT-Wazalendo launched its General Election campaigns at the weekend, promising to place leadership ethics first and to re-do the review of the country’s Constitution.

The party also promised to increase the number of primary school years from seven to ten “in order to help ensure better student performance”.

Speaking at the launch, Mghwira cited plans to revamp the economy saying in order to transform the country’s economy, ACT would work to boost agriculture through the establishment of the agriculture regulatory authority.

She said under her leadership and in accordance to the party’s election manifesto, economic transformation will grow at a rate of 10 per cent in a decade.

Following the Arusha Declaration of 1967, in which the country’s first President Julius Nyerere laid out his vision for self-reliance, many industries were nationalised and new industrial parastatals created. 

Nevertheless, half of all industries remained in private hands during the socialist period and Mwalimu Nyerere argued that a private sector was necessary for economic growth to occur. 

By the mid-1970s, however, the growth within the sector that had been achieved in the first few years of independence began to slow down.
Productivity in many of the industrial parastatals started to fall around the mid-1970s, mainly owing to chronic underutilisation of their capacity. 

Some once buoyant textile mills were operating at less than 10 per cent capacity by the mid-1980s. As a result, many of these parastatals became more dependent on government subsidies as their profits dwindled further.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Thursday, September 3, 2015

DIVER BREAKS UP MORTAL COMBAT BETWEEN DEADLY SEA SNAKE AND STONEFISH IN AUSTRALIA !!!


Diver breaks up mortal combat between deadly sea snake, stonefish

Danny Gallagher
September 3, 2015
 
sea-snake-and-stonefish.jpg
sea-snake-and-stonefish.jpg
Trippe says the sea snake was approximately 2 meters (6.5 feet) long.

Rick Trippe
If an average person happened upon the world's most poisonous snake and the world's most poisonous fish engaged in battle, stepping between them would probably be the last idea to come to mind. Leaving the area and trying to find a change of underpants would be more likely.
But for experienced diver and fisherman Rick Trippe of Darwin, Australia, breaking up such a deadly struggle of nature didn't even require a second thought.

The Australian realtor with a passion for being on the water found a sea snake and stonefish fighting each other during a Thursday trip in Darwin Harbor. He separated them with his own two hands and set them both free. The photos he posted of the encounter on his Facebook page quickly went viral, netting him emails from around the globe that probably contain phrases like "Are you insane?!?"

Trippe told CNET's Crave blog that he and a friend had just "up-anchored from an old World War II wreck and were feeling pretty chuffed" about the fish they caught when he first noticed the sea snake.

"We were going to our next wreck when we saw something in the middle of the harbor but couldn't make out what it says," Trippe said. "So with curiosity, we motored over to find a massive sea snake. It was close to 2 meters (6.5 feet) long and thick. As we approached the sea snake, we saw that it had a stonefish in its mouth."

Sea snakes and stonefish are classified as the most venomous members of their respective species. Sea snakes are actually docile -- they "don't want to touch humans" and don't always inject venom when they bite, Trippe says -- but he adds that their venom is "five times deadlier than a cobra's."
poor-sea-snake.jpg
poor-sea-snake.jpg
Diver Rick Trippe holds up a sea snake and a stonefish that he found fighting in Darwin Harbor.

Rick Trippe
Stonefish, also known as scorpion fish, inject their venom through the row of spines along their back. The stonefish's venom can cause intense pain that may take up to two days to recover from and can be fatal if injected into a person's chest or abdomen.

Trippe's photos show the snake's mouth locked on the stonefish's back where its poisonous spines are located. Trippe says he knew the stonefish wouldn't have a chance of surviving once the snake injected it with its venom but he still felt moved to break up the battle.

"Being an animal lover, I grabbed the snake just behind the head with serious precaution knowing that sea snakes are highly venomous, and untangled the stonefish, also poisonous, from its mouth and body," Trippe told CNET. "I released the now-happy snake from its impediment, but moments later, the snake swam around making a beeline for the not-so-happy stonefish and a second attempt."

Trippe says he knew by that point that the snake won and would have a tasty meal as the spoils of its victory. So he says he let it swim away and continued his trip. He didn't learn just how poisonous the snake he held in his hand was until he got in front of a computer. "Lucky I handled it with such care and didn't get bitten or I may not be here to tell the story or share these fabulous pictures," Trippe said.

Trippe says he has plenty of experience handling snakes and stonefish, unlike most people who get shivers just thinking about them. So he felt confident enough handling what turned out to be the most poisonous snake and fish in the world.

"People think I'm crazy, but I used to have a chicken coop and I would shine a torch in there and pull pythons out of there all the time, so I'm used to handling snakes," Trippe said. "Also, a friend of mine has a marine aquarium and I learned how to handle a stonefish from him. You just place a cap over the fish and slide a knife underneath it, but you have to be extremely careful because getting hit with a spike is very, very painful."

Trippe also says he takes "any chance I can" to go diving and fishing and quips that he feels "more danger on the street than I do in the ocean."

I think we've got a new Crocodile Hunter on our hands, folks. Quick, someone call Animal Planet!