Of 110 containers of pharmaceuticals entering West Africa searched in a special operation coordinated by the World Customs Organisation (WCO), 84 were found to contain fake pharmaceuticals. 82 million doses of fake medicine were confiscated which included anti-malarial and anti-HIV drugs and antibiotics.
Here in sub-Saharan Africa, over two children die every minute of malaria – which in 98% of cases can be cured with US $6 worth of genuine drugs. A spokesman for the WCO on BBC World Service radio last night said that the number of deaths caused directly by counterfeit medicine in Africa every year was in the hundreds of thousands. He called it “genocide”.
I might not use that word, but it is beyond doubt true that supplying counterfeit drugs to Africa causes more deaths than narcotics, than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East combined, and several hundred times more deaths than terrorism.
The supply of fake life-saving drugs to the world’s poorest people is not only on a far greater scale than terrorism, it is morally just as evil, killing innocent civilian populations, particularly children, on an unimaginable scale of slaughter.
So why does this terrible evil receive virtually no mainstream media exposure? Is it because it happens to Africans, and the media coverage of Africa is so negative and relentlessly concentrated on disaster that it leads to a perception that the natural state of Africans is to die of disease?
It is worth noting that this terrible crime is being committed against Africa from outside – almost none of the fake pharmaceuticals are made in Africa. Here in Ghana I know the good people at the Food and Drugs Administration; they are well organised, well-qualified and well-equipped. But they are fighting a huge tide of fake drugs and organised crime on a massive scale.
In Ghana the fake drugs come overwhelngly from China amd India, and I suspect that is true across the BRICS. This terrible dark side – the WCO estimates that the counterfeit drugs trade yields profits of US$9 billion a year – should be borne in mind when considering the success of the BRICS and their possible counterweight to Western influence in foreign affairs.
India and China have vastly more economic resources and greater government control than the African states whose people are the victims of this evil trade. The word “genocide” used by the WCO spokesman causes you to think in this case, because this is mass killing perpetrated by Asians against Africans. The exporting states must face up to their moral obligation to take responsibility for the quality control of the manufacture of their exports, and in particular for controls at ports to ensure fake drugs are not exported.
The United Nations and the World Health Organisation should take action to ensure that the xporting state has a legal obligation effectively to stop the export of counterfeit drugs, with effective redress for victim states against the exporting state.
Funny how the BBC isn’t telling us what’s going on in Bani Walid. Russia Today is talking about poison gas and mass civilian casualties. They must be “bad” civilians in Libya, as opposed to the “good” ones in Syria we are trying to liberate by arming our crew of jobbing jihadis. What a handy bunch of guys they are: bogeymen yesterday, stormtroopers today. Just spray on the RegimeAway, and watch those troublesome despots vanish.
Not to be taken internally (mostly). Prolonged use can lead to loss of liberty.
Don’t usually see too much about music here, but have to share our joy at the Bob Dylan/Mark Knopfler concert at Hollywood Bowl, last night.
Dylan was, of course, awesome, but knopfler stole the show with his Celtic/Rock fusion. It was something I didn’t think would work, but it did, for sure.
Personally I think William will die as well and when it happens, it will be totally inconsequential and his kin will once a year water the plastic flowers on his grave.
His equivalent in Africa, although not having Williams privileged and spoiled upbringing, will be revered well past his death, the story’s he told and the life he lived, will leave joy and remembrance for his grandchildren.
poor William, with a hate like that in your belly you best punch your own lights out.
They ‘swing right’?
Swiissshhhhhhhh !!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/a-pocket-guide-to-republican-rockers-20121025
Disturbing…..
http://www.vice.com/ground-zero/syria-assads-child-victims
‘British banker killed in hurricane’. Every cloud, eh? 🙂
Speaking of the killing of Africans…
6 million dead. A “Holocaust” by post-World War 11 standards – having due regard for the number oft stated for dead Jews from that period.
Britain’s role – engagement with and condoning the slaughter – does exist.
“A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Another United Nations report has been leaked, documenting Uganda and Rwanda’s de facto annexation of the eastern Congo and complicity in a genocide that has claimed six million lives. “The blood of millions flows into the ground, while billions of dollars in minerals are extracted from the earth and delivered to their corporate customers – with Rwandan and Ugandan middlemen pocketing their cut.”
See: http://blackagendareport.com/
BUT WHO CARES?
Actually, many more than 6 m died in the holocaust. It wasn’t just Jews. Political prisoners, Bahai, Jehovahs Witnesses etc among a few.
http://www.nizkor.org/
My point Ben Franklin was not one of saying that many more persons died in World War 11.
Rather, I was drawing a contrast between the noticed and remembered – versus the forgotten in Africa.
Holocausts show humanities limitations, when intellect is usurped by emotional hate, the reality of human intellect, not such evolved race when compared to its nearest compatriots.
Evolution does not come form destruction of life systems or devastating wars, it comes from cohesion, respect for all others, regardless of abilities, logistics, or leftover colonial preference, love for what keeps us alive, a sustainable cohesive approach, for all we have is
EACH OTHER….the universe is expanding!
I know Courtenay. It’s just that everyone uses the 6m number. I just wanted to make that point.
Just like the War on Drugs, the war on terrorism will be permanent.
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/10/27/the-permanent-counterterror-war/
“A piece in the Times describes a backlash over the monetary expense and compromises to privacy and civil liberties, a backlash that seems strong enough to force changes in counterterrorist programs. The different directions implied by this reporting reflect how the nation has failed to assimilate some basic principles about terrorism and measures to counter it.
One of those principles is that terrorism is not something with a beginning and an end. It is instead a tactic that has persisted throughout history. And yet the notion of a beginning and an end persists in thinking in this country about terrorism.
“The counterterrorism machine has gotten cranked up to run in ways that would not be acceptable to most Americans if it were to run forever, and yet there is no evident point at which, once turned on, it should be turned off. It was inevitable that a backlash would set in.
Related to this point is the prevalent, and equally mistaken, notion that fighting terrorism involves wiping out or incapacitating some identifiable set of people: “the terrorists.” That is the idea behind the hit lists and target matrices.
The Post‘s series depicts a U.S. counterterrorist effort that has become increasingly and narrowly focused on eliminating the people in the matrices rather than on what leads people to become terrorists and to get into the matrices in the first place.”
“Holocausts show humanities limitations”
I hope we’ve learned not to shut-down our defenses, should Camps reappear. I don’t intend to be silently slaughtered with wide cow-eyes as they have their way with me.
“Do not go gently, into that Good Night”
@ Ben Franklin,
“The Post‘s series depicts a U.S. counterterrorist effort that has become increasingly and narrowly focused on eliminating the people in the matrices rather than on what leads people to become terrorists and to get into the matrices in the first place.”
If one did focus on root causes then the game would not be played for the intended purpose of justifying the existence of the military-industrial complex. The arms manufacturers need to have markets, and the populace needs to be convinced of an external enemy, to justify the on-going production of the armaments:-
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
― George F. Kennan
Kennan was the architect of the “Cold War”. So – from the horse’s mouth you can discern what’s going on in the world.
” The arms manufacturers need to have markets”
That’s the linchpin. Even Eisenhower recognized the threat of an Industrial Complex embedded with the government. The only edge they (US) have is the technology. And, in order to keep the Materialists developing new weapons, they have to keep them wealthy. Then once you stockpile these weapons, they must be used, so they can be replenished.
It’s simple, and genius.
Courtenay;
I sometime read this site, but cannot guarantee they are not disinformational.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/
Translation from Chinese to English
“Analysis is very thorough, very much appreciate your views, study.”
Is there some reason people post in their native tongue, while reading in English?
高清电视棒
Please identify yourself…
I could be accused of giving comfort to the Enemy. It’s a shame we have to be so suspicious of the Agenda/Motives of commentators…..
What am I saying? My avatar descriptor is sarcasm, but as we all know, that is very difficult to discern when culture/language is matched, or closely matched. Imagine a joke in English told in Chinese with the same language.
Wars have been initiated, with less cause.
WTF?
I’m talking to myself…
What happened to the Chinese comment?
THIS is fucking weird. Jon?
I’m fucking emailing you and Craig,
Mark @ 1.51pm yesterday
You are correct Mark. See here.
http://www.chertoffgroup.com/press-releases-the-chertoff-group-serves-as-strategic-advisor-to-safran.php
The aphorism says it all. Talk about a veiled threat from one of the gangsters-in-chsrge.
“The best defense is knowing what
your enemies are up to, before they
know you know it.”
General Michael Hayden
Michael Vincent Hayden (born March 17, 1945) is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. From April 21, 2005 to May 26, 2006 he was the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, a position which once made him “the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces”.[1]
He was Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005. During his tenure as director, the longest in the history of the agency, he oversaw the controversial NSA surveillance of technological communications between persons in the United States and alleged foreign terrorist groups, which resulted in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.
On May 8, 2006, Hayden was nominated for the position of CIA Director and reappointment to the rank of general following the May 5 resignation of Porter J. Goss, and on May 23 the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12–3 to send the nomination to the Senate floor. His nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 26 by a vote of 78–15. On May 30, 2006 and again the following day at the CIA lobby with President George W. Bush in attendance, Hayden was sworn in as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
On July 1, 2008, Hayden retired from the Air Force after nearly 39 years of active-duty military service and continued to serve as Director of the CIA until 12 February 2009.[2] He is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy co-founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.[3] Hayden also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy and was elected to the Board of Directors of Motorola Solutions effective January 4, 2011.[4]
“Disposition Matrix”: President’s 10-Year Plan for the Kill List
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/13373-disposition-matrix-presidents-10-year-plan-for-the-kill-list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negation
We now know > bombs =< medicine/drugs.
Nevermind at 10.52 – yes exactly – unifying, collaborative, connective Love.
The Good and the Great
@Ben Franklin. You supposition was that the war on terror will carry on just as the war on drugs.
Well, we know that the war on drugs has clearly failed to stem the tide of drugs that the world demanded, indeed most argue that it was just a cover for organised Government social engineering, why else would police forces engage in drug trafficking?
So, we know that the war on terror will fail, a retrograde step resulting in a 21st. century wild west, gun law ueber alles, so why not stop this money transfer from our taxes to those already immensely rich? when we already know?
Is it some sort of upper class therapy we are involved in, trying to avert full psychopathy and deep depression, psychological illnesses that would be too mucgh for these captains of industry to bear, so we let these money addicts make more, every day.
Should we tell them that they can’t eat it and that in itself money has no value whatsoever?
What a silver lining, the war on terror will be lost, thanks for that Ben and thanks for being calm, collected and paying for it. who says there is no good news to be had.
“we know that the war on terror will fail”
The important requirement of these wars is not that they succeed or fail, just that they continue. There is no end but repetition. That’s Eliot, I think.
@Ben Franklin – I zapped a Chinese comment a day or two ago, it was almost certainly spam.
There was an item under a Chinese name at 3:08am today, but that seems to have been a joke by an anonymous poster. Have zapped that too.
Jon; Thanks. It was unsettling as it appeared the poster deleted it’s own.
Nevermind;
“What a silver lining, the war on terror will be lost”
It’s being lost every day.