My Daily Inquirer

It could be the worst mass poisoning in history. And the terrible irony is that it may all be due to an idealistic push to clean up drinking water for some of the world's poorest people.

A new study published in British medical journal The Lancet says that up to 77 million people in Bangladesh are being exposed to toxic levels of arsenic, potentially taking years or decades off their lives.

An international team of researchers from Chicago, New York and Bangladesh followed 12,000 people over the past decade, monitoring their arsenic intake and mortality rates from contaminated wells.

By the end of the study, one in five deaths were determined to be directly related to elevated arsenic levels in their system. Stretch that over the entire population that takes its water from wells, and the impact is daunting.

The problem has been known about for years, if not the overall deadly impact.

As far back as a decade ago, the World Health Organization called it "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history... beyond the accidents at Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986."

Well-meaning development groups had encouraged remote villages across Bangladesh to dig wells over the past decades, rather than rely on potentially contaminated surface water and dirty rivers. But now potentially a much worse problem has been found far below the surface.

Arsenic is a deadly poison with a history of use in intrigue and assassination. Some have even theorized that Napoleon Bonaparte succumbed to long term poisoning with the substance by his enemies while in exile on the island of St. Helena.

But the element and its derivatives are also used in many industries, such as metal smelting and as a component in products ranging from insecticide to micro-chips.

And unfortunately, it is also found in abundance in the soil and rock in Bangladesh. It's leached up through the water table in tens of millions of water wells across the country.

The study showed that the top quarter of those exposed had a 70 percent higher mortality rate than would be expected in the population as a whole.

The authors hope for more study, and a long term plan to deal with the damage already done. But a solution for those already poisoned may remain decades away.

Other long term health studies have shown it takes 20 years for the negative morbidity effects of arsenic poisoning to dissipate, even after they stopped using contaminated wells.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/20/bangladesh.arsenic.poisoning/index.html

While cleanup crews and technical teams continue efforts to stop crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana lawmakers are proposing a different approach: prayer.

State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God's help dealing with the oil disaster.

"Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail," state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week's unanimous vote for the day of prayer. "It is clearly time for a miracle for us."

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast "to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood."

Also Sunday, wildlife officials were planning to transport and release 40 pelicans that rescuers rehabilitated after finding them covered with oil. The birds will be moved from New Orleans, Louisiana, to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Port Aransas, Texas.

As much as 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of oil may be gushing into the Gulf every day, new government estimates found last week.

BP said it was able to capture roughly 8,480 barrels of oil from midnight to 12 p.m. Saturday. The company said it captured 24,500 barrels -- just over a million gallons -- of oil Friday, a little less than it captured the day before.

iReport: Share your views on Gulf oil spill

BP said Saturday that it has paid $104 million to residents along the Gulf Coast who have filed claims related to the Gulf oil spill, issuing more than 31,000 checks in the past seven weeks.

There was no immediate response from local, state or federal officials to BP's tally of its payments.

Meanwhile, oil recovery efforts in the Gulf resumed Saturday morning on the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, after work was suspended for about 10 hours because of a mechanical problem.

A venting device aboard the drilling ship as not working properly, said Ayla Kelley, spokesperson for the Deepwater Horizon command center.

Other recovery efforts continued during the time that the Discoverer Enterprise was idled, she said.

She said the problem was with a blocked flame arrester, designed to prevent oil from combusting by extinguishing the flame.

South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.

"She looked at me and said, 'If only had teeth down there,'" recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. "I promised her I'd do something to help people like her one day."

Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.

Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.

The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man's penis during penetration, Ehlers said.

Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it -- a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.

"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on," she said. "If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter... however, it doesn't break the skin, and there's no danger of fluid exposure."

Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.

"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.

After the trial period, they'll be available for about $2 a piece. She hopes the women will report back to her.
It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on. If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter
--Dr Sonnet Ehlers
RELATED TOPICS

* Sexual Offenses
* South Africa

"The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she's going out on some kind of blind date ... or to an area she's not comfortable with," she said.

The mother of two daughters said she visited prisons and talked to convicted rapists to find out whether such a device would have made them rethink their actions.

Some said it would have, Ehlers said.

Critics say the female condom is not a long-term solution and makes women vulnerable to more violence from men trapped by the device.

It's also a form of "enslavement," said Victoria Kajja, a fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the east African country of Uganda. "The fears surrounding the victim, the act of wearing the condom in anticipation of being assaulted all represent enslavement that no woman should be subjected to."

Kajja said the device constantly reminds women of their vulnerability.

"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," she added. "It also does not help with the psychological problems that manifest after assaults."

However, its one advantage is it allows justice to be served, she said.

Various rights organizations that work in South Africa declined to comment, including Human Rights Watch and Care International.

South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, Human Rights Watch says on its website. A 2009 report by the nation's Medical Research Council found that 28 percent of men surveyed had raped a woman or girl, with one in 20 saying they had raped in the past year, according to Human Rights Watch.

In most African countries, rape convictions are not common. Affected women don't get immediate access to medical care, and DNA tests to provide evidence are unaffordable.

"Women and girls who experience these violations are denied justice, factors that contribute to the normalization of rape and violence in South African society," Human Rights Watch says.

Women take drastic measures to prevent rape in South Africa, Ehlers said, with some wearing extra tight biker shorts and others inserting razor blades in their private parts.

Critics have accused her of developing a medieval device to fight rape.

"Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it's for a medieval deed that has been around for decades," she said. "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."

Security in war-torn Afghanistan has not improved in recent months and violence threatens any strides toward stability, a United Nations report said.

"Indiscriminate anti-government element attacks against civilian targets, government representatives and international military forces continued," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his latest report this week to the U.N. Security Council.

"The alarming trend of increased improvised explosive device incidents and the occurrence of complex suicide attacks persisted. Military operations also intensified," said Ban, who noted that the country remains unstable despite improvements in the development of Afghan security forces.

Full CNN coverage with Afghanistan Crossroads

Ban said he is pleased by a recent assembly of tribal leaders, called a jirga, convened to thrash out the country's peace process. Attempted suicide attacks and rocket fire marred the jirga's opening session, but Ban said the event "proceeded undeterred."
Video: U.S. troops out by July 2011?
RELATED TOPICS

* Afghanistan War
* United Nations
* Ban Ki-moon

"I am heartened by the outcome of the consultative peace jirga, a step towards reaching out to all Afghans to promote an inclusive dialogue aimed at achieving stability and peace in Afghanistan," Ban said.

Ban also said the country's national assembly elections are still on schedule for September 18.

He praised the "state of preparedness" of Afghan election officials for the September vote and the presence of more than 400 women on the preliminary list of candidates.

"Strengthened Afghan electoral institutions in the lead will instil greater public confidence in the electoral process and contribute to improved, more credible elections," he said.

But Ban said election security will be critical and election officials "must balance polling center security against the need to make the elections accessible to all Afghans."

He also said that Afghanistan is hosting an international conference July 20 in Kabul where an Afghan-led plan to improve development, governance and security is to be presented.

That's a follow-up to a January conference in London, where Afghanistan and its allies met to discuss the country's political and economic development.

Fighting between the Turkish military and Kurdish rebels erupted along the Turkish-Iraq border and left several troops dead, the military and a rebel group said on Saturday.

The Turkish military said at least eight Turkish soldiers and 12 Kurdish rebels died.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party, a rebel group known as the PKK, said nine soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in fighting that occurred after guerillas attacked troops. It said guerrillas repulsed attack helicopters and one chopper was damaged.

The deadly clashes are the latest in a round of intense fighting in the area between Turkish security forces and the PKK.

A top Turkish general announced last week that at least 43 Turkish security forces were killed in clashes since the beginning of March.

Meanwhile, Gen. Fahri Kir, the military commander of domestic security operations, claimed 130 PKK guerrillas had been killed during the same period. He cited airstrikes carried out against rebel targets across the border in Iraq on May 20, which he said killed nearly 100 PKK fighters.

The PKK has long operated out of camps in the remote mountains of northern Iraq and has been battling the Turkish government since the early 1980s.

Initially, the movement fought to carve out a separate homeland for Turkey's ethnic Kurdish minority, which makes up nearly 18 percent of the Turkish population, according to the CIA World Factbook. More than 30,000 people, mostly ethnic Kurds, have been killed during the conflict.

Afghan and international troops killed a Taliban commander believed to be involved in a bombing attack that killed two Americans, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said on Saturday.

The incident took place Friday night in the Chahar Darah district of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan.

Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Razaq "was responsible for moving suicide operatives" throughout the eastern part of Kunduz, ISAF said.

He was also believed to be involved in an improvised explosive device strike that killed two U.S. soldiers in the Isa Khan region of Kunduz on Wednesday.

Other insurgents were killed in the operation after people shot and threw grenades at security forces as they searched a compound, ISAF said. Troops returned fire and took over the compound.

At least five people were killed and 17 were wounded in late-night attacks in Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday, police officials confirmed to CNN.

Also Saturday, police discovered the bodies of five women shot inside a house in the Zayouna neighborhood. It was unclear how long the women had been dead. Police said they were called when a neighbor noticed the stench coming from the house, which is a neighborhood with a mix of religious backgrounds.

On Saturday night, three people were killed and 14 others were wounded when three roadside bombs exploded in the same location within 20 minutes in Shiite neighborhood of Hurriya.

The first blast happened around 11:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. ET) and several people were wounded. The second blast occurred when people gathered around the site of the first attack,and the third came when police arrived to investigate. Four police officers were among the wounded, officials said.

Two civilians were killed and three others were wounded when a person fired a Katyusha rocket into a house in the Shiite neighborhood of Obaidi around 11:45 p.m., officials said.

President Barack Obama welcomed Saturday's news that China's central bank will allow its national currency to float ahead of the G-20 summit in Toronto, Canada, next week.

In a statement issued Saturday, Obama praised China's decision to increase the flexibility of its exchange rate, which officials hope will help balance China's trade deficit with the United States and Europe.

"China's decision to increase the flexibility ... is a constructive step that can help safeguard the recovery and contribute to a more balanced global economy," the president said in the statement.

"I look forward to discussing these and other issues at the G-20 Summit in Toronto next weekend," he said.

Will currency move help U.S.-China relations?

China's official Xinhua news agency said The People's Bank of China -- China's central bank -- announced Saturday it would push further its rate reform to make the the yuan, also known as the renminbi, more flexible. The move could appease international criticism against China's weak exchange rate, which has created trade imbalances between Western nations and China.
Video: Analyst on China-U.S. trade deficit
Video: China: Opportunity or threat?
RELATED TOPICS

* China
* United States
* Economic Issues

"The decision was made in view of the recent economic situation and financial market developments at home and abroad, and the balance of payments (BOP) situation in China," Xinhua quoted the Central Bank's spokesperson.

"The stability of the RMB (renminbi) exchange rate has played an important role in mitigating the crisis' impact, contributing significantly to Asian and global recovery, and demonstrating China's efforts in promoting global rebalancing," he said.

The International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, released a statement on China's move, which he described as a "welcome development."

"A stronger renminbi is in line with findings of the G-20 Mutual Assessment Process, to be presented in Toronto next week, and will help increase Chinese household income and provide the incentives necessary to reorient investment toward industries that serve the Chinese consumer," he said.

China's move comes ahead of the Group of 20 and the Group of 8 meetings in Canada's Province of Ontario scheduled next week, with finance ministers and central bank governors of major trading powers will discuss trade issues and the world financial crisis.

Representatives of several industrialized nations including India, Brazil, the United States and European countries have previously asked China to allow its currency to float.

BP said Saturday that it has paid $104 million to residents along the Gulf Coast who have filed claims related to the Gulf oil spill.

The company said it has issued more than 31,000 checks in the past seven weeks.

There was no immediate response from local, state or federal officials to BP's tally of its payments.

But earlier Saturday, as oil recovery efforts continued throughout the region, one Louisiana official tried out a new device of his own on: a reversible drum vac that he ordered online for $400.

Within 15 minutes, he said his crews had collected 55 gallons of oil and Nungesser -- vocally frustrated by the response from BP and the federal government -- was thinking about whipping out his credit card to pay for more pumps from an online site.

BP issued a press release Saturday detailing its response to Gulf residents affected by the spill. The company said it has received about 64,000 claims so far, and the average time from filing a claim to checks being issued is four days for individuals and seven days for "more complex business claims that have provided supporting documentation."

The company said a 1,000-member claim team is working in 33 field offices in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Some 84,000 calls have come in on a toll-free claims line, BP said.

Meanwhile, oil recovery efforts in the Gulf resumed Saturday morning on the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, after work was suspended for about 10 hours because of a mechanical problem.

A venting device aboard the drilling ship was not working properly, said Ayla Kelley, spokesperson for the Deepwater Horizon command center. Other recovery efforts continued during the time that the Discoverer Enterprise was idled, she said.

She said the problem was with a blocked flame arrester, designed to prevent oil from combusting. Collection on the Discoverer Enterprise resumed Saturday morning after a subsequent delay caused by a lightning storm.

BP said it was able to capture roughly 24,500 barrels -- just over 1 million gallons -- of oil Friday, a little less than it captured the day before.

Meanwhile, Tony Hayward, the beleaguered company's equally beleaguered chief executive officer, was also on the water Saturday -- but not anywhere near the Gulf.

After being lambasted in Congress on Thursday, Hayward was spending the weekend with his family in Britain's Isle of Wight, said company spokesman Robert Wine.
Video: BP fund raises many legal questions
Video: BP station owners: Don't boycott us
Video: Florida mayor backs out of BP protest
RELATED TOPICS

* BP plc
* Tony Hayward
* Gulf Coast Oil Spill
* Accidents and Disasters
* Sea Disasters

On Saturday -- Day 61 of the oil disaster -- Hayward was watching his yacht, a Farr 52 named Bob, compete at the tony J.P. Morgan Assessment Management Round the Island Race -- an act likely to spark more public outrage for the company and its chief.

"That's so typical. Judging from the comments he's made all along, did you expect anything different?" Nungesser said.

Nungesser said he didn't buy one word of Hayward's testimony before a key House subcommittee, his first appearance on the Hill since April 20, when an the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and triggered the massive oil spill.

Lawmakers wanted to know if BP had cut corners in an effort to save money in the run-up to the explosion, focusing on the well's design and measures taken while BP was attempting to seal it before it exploded.

Hayward repeatedly answered that he wasn't involved in those decisions or did not recall.

The seven-hour-plus hearing came a day after Hayward and other top BP officials met with President Obama's disaster team in the White House and announced a $20 billion escrow fund to help compensate victims.

After the session, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said his company cares about the "small people" impacted by the oil. He later apologized for the remark but it was a continuation of public relations gaffes for the oil company that began with Hayward saying the spill would be "modest" and that he wanted his life back.

"We need to take decision-making away from BP," Nungesser said. "We need to do everything we can to fight this disaster."

As much as 60,000 barrels a day may be gushing into the Gulf, new estimates found this week, and many Americans reached out to do what they could to help.

One of them was comedian Stephen Colbert, host of "The Colbert Report," who along with Bing.com started a charitable fund with a donation of $100,000. The Colbert Nation Gulf of America Fund will be used to help people and wildlife affected by oil.

Tens of thousands of pages worth of documents from Elena Kagan's past have left President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee relatively unscathed and important details about her still a mystery heading into confirmation hearings for a lifetime job as a justice.

Documents from Kagan's service in the Clinton White House, including her own e-mails as a policy aide and lawyer, reinforce the portrait that's emerged in recent weeks: a politically savvy, sometimes hard-edged strategist whose views of the Constitution are at odds with those of conservatives.

In a 1997 e-mail about former Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan wrote admiringly of her legal mentor's view of the Constitution as a "living charter" and his concern as a justice for "the underdog."

It's not surprising language coming from a Democratic president's nominee. It's also probably going to underscore the Republicans' line of argument that she will be a liberal activist from the bench.

From the records, there is scant evidence about what kind of justice Kagan would be. Supporters suggest she can serve as a consensus-builder among deeply divided conservatives and liberals on the nine-member court.

In addition, newly released records from the Defense Department that detail her dispute with the Pentagon on military recruiters' access to the campus of Harvard Law School, where she was dean, appear to contain little ammunition for GOP critics.

These documents show that long before Kagan decided to bar recruiters from the campus career services office because of the military's policy against openly gay soldiers, at least one Pentagon official said the approach gave recruiters access that matched that of other prospective employers at the law school.

"Thank you for providing our military recruiters a degree of access to students that is equal in quality and scope to that afforded to other employers," an Army judge advocate recruiter wrote in 1998 to Kagan's predecessor, who set the policy she would later use.

The Obama White House has worked to ensure that no revelation from the documents harms Kagan's chances. Working with former President Bill Clinton, officials shielded from public view most details about Kagan's work on the scandals that in many ways defined his tenure. That includes her role defending him from the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit that led to his impeachment.

In all, nearly 160,000 pages were unearthed, including 80,000 pages of e-mail — an unprecedented release for a Supreme Court nominee. They were dribbled out on Friday afternoons, the customary time in official Washington for releasing unfavorable information or material one hopes attracts little notice. The e-mails emerged late Friday afternoon; the Pentagon documents on Saturday.

Conservative activists say that's no accident.

The Clinton-era documents portray Kagan as a "political operative ... with disdain for the Second Amendment and the NRA (National Rifle Association), concern for currying favor with gay and lesbian groups, and support for judges who will decide cases by giving an edge to 'the underdog' and interpreting the Constitution as a 'living,' malleable document," said Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network.

The timing, she added, "represents the Obama administration's best political maneuver to hide any information revealed about the president's Supreme Court nominee in the Saturday papers."

But the revelations are fairly thin.

The files say more about Kagan as a person and political operator than about what kind of jurisprudence she might practice. She comes across as a sharp intellect and somewhat territorial; highly opinionated but eager to facilitate consensus; with little tolerance for lofty rhetoric and a playful, dry wit.

In a 1997 e-mail to her boss at Clinton's Domestic Policy Council, Kagan seemed to acknowledge her willingness to throw elbows in a White House full of overachievers. "I'll be as insistent as I know how to be (which, as you know, ... )," she wrote Bruce Reed.

To a colleague passing along request from the Women's Office to see a copy of a directive she was drafting, Kagan responded simply but emphatically: "NOOOOOO."

Kagan wasn't afraid to challenge leading members of the administration when she felt strongly about something or her political instincts told her they were doing the wrong things.

In a 1999 e-mail, she called herself one of the Clinton White House's biggest fans of a law to protect religious freedom, but warned then-Vice President Al Gore against endorsing it for fear of creating "a gay/lesbian firestorm." She told his chief of staff, Ron Klain — who now holds the same job for Vice President Joe Biden — that aides were meeting with religious and gay groups to try to smooth over their differences on the matter.

"We'll let you know as soon as it's safe to go back in the water," she wrote.

The previous year, she counseled against having Hillary Rodham Clinton announce new policies or promises in a speech about race.

"I'm generally not in favor of the FLOTUS announcing policy unless it's in one of her areas (e.g., child care)," Kagan responded, using the White House shorthand for first lady of the United States. "I'd go for a promising practice instead."

But Kagan was more than willing to reach for more responsibility in Clinton's White House, particularly in policy areas she was passionate about. Affirmative action and campaign finance were two, according to a 1995 e-mail.

In a note to Abner Mikva, a White House counsel under Clinton, Kagan lobbied to be put in charge of affirmative action, given that presidential race adviser Chris Edley was leaving.

"Is there a need for someone to keep on top of the affirmative action issue — for example, by working with Justice on its review of all affirmative action programs? I know the issue well (because I teach it) and care about it a lot; if there's stuff to do here, I'd love to do it."

A top U.S. envoy called Saturday for an independent investigation into the violence that has devastated southern Kyrgyzstan, as amateur video emerged of unarmed Uzbeks gathering to defend their town during the attacks.

Prosecutors on Saturday charged Azimzhan Askarov, the head of a prominent human rights group who shot the video, with inciting ethnic hatred. Askarov had accused the military of complicity in the bloody rampages that sent hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks fleeing for their lives.

The country's rights ombudsman Tursunbek Akun insisted the charges against Askarov were fabricated, and activists in Bishkek demonstrated before U.N. offices to demand his release.

Valentina Gritsenko, head of the Justice rights organization, said she feared Askarov was being tortured. He was detained with his brother on Tuesday in his southern hometown of Bazar-Korgon, colleagues told The Associated Press.

Entire Uzbek neighborhoods in southern Kyrgyzstan have been reduced to scorched ruins by rampaging mobs of ethnic Kyrgyz who forced nearly half of the region's roughly 800,000 Uzbeks to flee. Interim President Roza Otunbayeva says up to 2,000 people may have died in the clashes.

Kyrgyz authorities say the violence was sparked by supporters of ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in April amid accusations of corruption. The U.N. has said the unrest appeared orchestrated, but has stopped short of assigning blame. Bakiyev, from exile, has denied any involvement.

Many ethnic Uzbeks also accused security forces of standing by or helping majority Kyrgyz mobs as they slaughtered Uzbeks and burned neighborhoods. Col. Iskander Ikramov, chief of the Kyrgyz military in the south, says the army didn't interfere because it is not a police force.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake met with Otunbayeva in Bishkek, the capital, on Saturday after touring several packed refugee camps in neighboring Uzbekistan.

Blake said the interim government should probe the violence and "such an investigation should be complemented by an international investigation by a credible international body."

He said the U.S. was working with the Kyrgyz government to make sure the refugees would be able to return home safely. The United States has released $32.2 million in aid, and Russia and France also sent planeloads of relief gear.

The Associated Press obtained Askarov's video, which was shot June 13 at the height of the rampages. It shows a few dozen Uzbeks pacing nervously around a square in Bazar-Korgon, an ethnic Uzbek settlement, apparently before rioters descended. Armed with only sticks and stones, several men are seen heading across the square as gun shots ring out and smoke rises in background.

"Are we going to just sit around and wait for them?" one man says in Uzbek. In a different shot, a voice colleagues confirm as Askarov's is heard saying "They're getting close."

"So many people have died over there. ... One armed group is gone; there is still another which has stayed. They're shooting from the direction of the prison, and Uzbeks have nothing but sticks one meter or half a meter long. There is smoke rising and I have no idea what's left there," Askarov says.

Destruction caused during the rampages was visible Saturday in parts of Bazar-Korgon, and Askarov's office was one of several gutted buildings.

The United Nations estimates 400,000 people have fled their homes and about 100,000 of them have entered Uzbekistan.

Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks massed this week in VLKSM (Veh-L-Kah-S-M), a village near Kyrgyzstan's main southern city of Osh. The village's name is a Russian-language acronym for the Soviet Communist Youth League, leftover from when this Central Asian nation was a Soviet republic.

Red Cross spokesman Christian Cardon said agency workers distributed oil and wheat flower to 12,750 displaced people in VLKSM on Saturday and handed out supplies to 18,750 displaced in Suretapa.

"The situation is still quite tense, but we're able to access all the places" where uprooted people have gathered, he said.

Employees from the Kyrgyz Red Crescent and ICRC workers monitor the distribution of aid, he said.

Many said they could not go back to their towns and live next to the people they accuse of attacking them.

"This is our nation, this is a holy land, but I can't live here any more," said Mukhabat Ergashova, a retiree who had taken shelter with dozens of others in a crowded tent.

"We are all witnesses to the fact that innocent citizens were fired upon from an armored personnel carrier by soldiers in military uniform. I don't know whether they were from the government or some third party, but they only shot at Uzbeks," said Sabir Khaidir, an ethnic Uzbek in Jalal-Abad.

Supplies of bread and rice from Uzbekistan kept the refugees from starvation. But many had to sleep in the open air, and overcrowding, bad sanitary conditions and a shortage of clean water were making many sick. Overwhelmed doctors struggled to treat outbreaks of diarrhea and other ailments with paltry medical supplies.

In Osh, the atmosphere remained tense, with barricades of burned out cars and debris blocking Uzbek neighborhoods. Otunbayeva, the interim leader, arrived Friday by helicopter in Osh's central square in the hope of conveying a sign of stability.

"We have to give hope that we shall restore the city, return all the refugees and create all the conditions for that," she said, wearing a bulletproof vest.

In recent years, African artists have seen their work increase in value as they attract global investors.

South Africa, in particular, has seen a significant rise in prices paid out for major works, according to Strauss and Co, a Johannesburg auction house selling 20th Century art.

Prices for major South African art are estimated to have increased by over 500 percent in the past five to 10 years, according to the auction house.

In recent years a new world record was set for a still-life by a South African artist when a stunning piece by Irma Stern sold for more than one million dollars.

Only halfway through the year, Strauss and Co. says it has already earned more from sales this year than in the whole of 2009.

Among the beneficiaries is Johannesburg-based William Kentridge, who is perhaps the closest the African art world has to a rock star.

He is one of Africa's most commercially successful artists and his work is in demand around the globe.

But he acknowledged that the market for contemporary art is small. "A lot of work gets sold to institutions and wealthy patronizing collectors -- patrons of the art," Kentridge told CNN.
In Africa there is very little local buying of contemporary art and that's why artists go abroad.
--Ross Douglas, Johannesburg Art Fair
RELATED TOPICS

* Art History
* Johannesburg
* Africa

"The number of people that actually seriously collect, and are interested, and travel to exhibitions, and are knowledgeable about it is tiny. But they form the bulk of the collectors of contemporary art."

In South Africa the pool of people buying serious art is even smaller. Most are white businesspeople. The country's emerging black middle class and wealthy have not yet started buying South African contemporary art in the same way the newly monied classes snapped up art in China and India.

Ross Douglas organizes the Johannesburg Art Fair. He told CNN, "What we saw in China and India was that they suddenly got very rich and they started buying contemporary art at the same time the international art market started buying it. And one supported the other.

"In Africa there is very little local buying of contemporary art and that's why artists go abroad. But that will change, slowly."

There are signs that change is already happening. Young South African artists like Lawrence Lemaoana and Mary Sibanda earn a living from their art, which didn't happen five years ago.

"As an artist you have to work extra hard," said Sibanda. "You have to keep reinventing yourself because you can't keep showing the same thing over and over again."

They rely on galleries and the Johannesburg Art Fair -- the only major art fair in Africa -- to introduce their work to South Africans.

Lemaoana told CNN, "It is a great platform for introducing the normal public into walking into a gallery. Because one of the things we struggle with in South Africa is the idea of culture, and how culture is limited to a few people.

"I think it's an interesting way of inviting Joe Soap to walk in and maybe buy an artwork."

Before the economic meltdown, South African corporations such as big banks or mobile phone companies were the main investors in local art.

But gallery owners say those companies have cut back in the past two years, reasoning it might be difficult to explain to shareholders why they were buying art in the middle of the global credit crunch.

Those sentiments have been echoed in global art capitals such as New York and London.

"There was a huge bubble of extraordinary prices being paid for contemporary work, and that took a knock," said Kentridge.

"It was astonishing how short that was. I think what happens when you have the crash in the art market the way you had in the late 1980s.

"There was a period in which it was very easy for galleries to survive and make money and do well; it's much harder now."

But at the top end of the market at least, things seem to be picking up. Which could be good news for those who were early investors in mid-20th century South African art.

The acting president of Kyrgyzstan said when it comes to the recent ethnic clashes in her country, she would multiply the official death toll by 10, according to the Russian news website Kommersant.

Roza Otunbayeva told Kommersant that many deaths in the countryside were not part of the official total of yet, which the Kyrgyz news agency Kabar places at 191, according to the Kyrgyz Health Care Ministry.

In a separate interview in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, the interim president called for reconciliation between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.

"By all means, we have to give hope that we shall restore the city, return all the refugees and create all conditions for that. I think the entire world will be helping us, because we two peoples have the goodwill to live in peace and friendship together," Otunbayeva said.

A U.S. official on Friday called for a "substantial" investigation into the killings. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake was at a refugee camp near the border in Uzbekistan, where thousands of ethnic Uzbeks fled violence in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

Blake said he wants Kyrgyzstan authorities to investigate who carried out the attacks on ethnic Uzbeks and to bring those responsible to justice. He planned to go to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek later Friday to deliver the message personally, he said.
Video: Refugee to Putin: 'Please help us'
Video: U.S. calls for Kyrgyzstan probe
Video: Survivors of violence share tales
Video: Kyrgyzstan up close
RELATED TOPICS

* Uzbekistan
* International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Blake praised the Uzbek government for working to support the refugees who have flooded into their country. About 120,000 have crossed the border into Uzbekistan, far more than officials had been expecting.

The Obama administration is committed to assisting the Uzbek government with supplies and other aid, Blake said at the camp near Yor Kishlok, where refugees were living in rows of tents.

While countries and nongovernmental organizations are sending aid to the region, Otunbayeva's assistant, Azimbek Beknazarov, said in a news release Friday morning that if England doesn't extradite Maksim Bakiev, the son of deposed Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev, then the Kyrgyz government will consider "closing the Manas airbase." However, the interim government representative, Temir Sariev, told CNN that, "This is only Mr. Beknazarov's opinion and, so far, the interim government is not sharing this opinion."

In a statement released by London-based attorneys, Maksim Bakiev said, "I have been forced into exile in fear for my life. The interim government in Kyrgyzstan accuses me of new crimes every day. The charges are bogus, to divert attention from their own crimes. They accuse me before there has been any opportunity for an investigation. Clearly they seek to try to make me a scapegoat for the chaos in the country. I view events in my homeland with horror and pray for an end to the violence."

Refugees were telling stories about the violence that began last week, describing houses and businesses burned by rampaging militias, bodies in the streets and how their relatives had been killed.

Video and witness accounts were starting to emerge Friday that units of the Kyrgyz military may have been taking part in the violence. Refugees on both sides of the border said they are frightened by the Kyrgyz military.

Ethnic violence has displaced about 300,000 people inside Kyrgyzstan, The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Thursday, citing information from the Kyrgyz interim government and nongovernmental organizations.

Some relief for those refugees is imminent. The UN refugee agency said Friday it will begin airlifting supplies into Kyrgyzstan this weekend. UNHCR plans to send two cargo planes to Osh with enough assistance to help about 15,000 people, with one arriving Saturday and the other Sunday.

Families and host communities were sheltering many of them, but at least 40,000 people were in need of shelter, according to the UNHCR.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a "flash appeal" for $71 million, seeking immediate funding for food, shelter, medical supplies and other emergency aid as part of the response to the crisis.

The violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan has calmed down after it erupted late last week. The UNHCR said in addition to the dozens of deaths, around 1,900 have been wounded.

The agency said the situation in Osh and nearby villages "appears to be volatile," and conditions in Jalal-Abad are tense. Many families have left Osh and Jalal-Abad for Bishkek and other areas.

The flood of refugees into Uzbekistan has strained the country's health care and food sectors, and several dozen female refugees crossed the border pregnant and have given birth, the United Nations said.

China, which borders Kyrgyzstan on the east, said Thursday it had removed 1,299 Chinese nationals, the state-run news agency Xinhua said.

The clashes in Kyrgyzstan, which started last week, were part of the most serious outbreak of ethnic violence in the former Soviet republic since 1990, when hundreds of people died in skirmishes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh.

The United Nations and several countries, including the United States, Germany and Russia, have sent aid to the region. Francois Blancy, deputy head of the Red Cross regional office in Uzbekistan, said more aid is needed.

"We are now at the peak of the humanitarian crisis," Blancy said Thursday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the United States will give $60 million to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for help to Palestinian refugees on Friday, a move designed to improve the lives of 4.7 million people.

The aid comes as the United States and the international community struggle to provide increased aid to Palestinians living in Gaza. In May, in a deadly clash aboard a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza, Israeli forces killed nine activists. Israel subsequently has said it will ease restrictions on aid going into Gaza but will not end its naval blockade.

The United States already is the largest single source of support for refugees and refugees and victims of conflict internationally, Clinton said, providing $1.7 billion last year, including $640 million for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or the UNHCR.

Clinton made the comments at a World Refugee Day event, co-hosted by the Department of State and the UNHCR.

It included live interactive video feeds with High Commissioner Antonio Guterres and an Iraqi refugee family in Syria; UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie; and a UNHCR official and a Congolese man displaced because to activities of the Lord's Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"We are all vulnerable no matter how comfortable our lives may appear to be," Clinton said. "But we too, around the world, those of us who enjoy the benefits of the life that we have built or inherited, we too are vulnerable to war and conflict, droughts and floods, environmental disasters as we've seen even in our own country."

Clinton said that many of the refugee problems cannot be solved simply with humanitarian aid.

"It's a question of better governance, more accountable governance, of political and diplomatic efforts, of reconciliation and peace, of the growth of democracies and economies." she said.

Angelina Jolie, with 34 refugee families from Colombia living on the border with Ecuador, said they were "terrified" and that almost everyone in the families had someone who had been murdered. "They are so grateful just to be safe," she said.

A U.N. report released Saturday painted a grim picture of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying roadside bombings and assassinations have soared the first four months of the year amid ramped up military operations in the Taliban-dominated south.

The United Nations' findings appeared at odds with Pentagon assertions this week claiming slow-but-steady progress in Afghanistan — an assessment challenged by U.S. lawmakers during hearings on Capitol Hill.

The report, which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon submitted to the U.N. Security Council this week, said Afghanistan's overall security situation "has not improved" since his last report in March.

Roadside bombings in the first four months of 2010 skyrocketed 94 percent over the same period of 2009, and assassinations of Afghan officials jumped 45 percent, mostly in the ethnic Pashtun south, which has become the focus of the war, the report said.

Suicide attacks occurred at a rate of about three per week, half in the restive south. The increase in complex attacks — using a combination of suicide bombers and small-arms fire — pointed to Taliban groups linked with al-Qaida, the report said.

The study found some encouraging signs, however, including the government's plan to reach out to insurgents and offer economic incentives to leave the battlefield. It also said the U.N. was working with Afghan officials to prepare for parliamentary elections in September.

Nevertheless, the U.N. found the number of security incidents had "increased significantly compared to previous years," in large part because of more military operations in the south early this year.

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters in the capital on Saturday despite negative assessments, the international force was making steady strides.

"Tough fighting is expected to continue, but the situation is trending in our favor as more forces flow into the area," Blotz said.

He said joint NATO and Afghan forces were stepping up the pace of identifying and killing those responsible for attacks. Insurgent commanders were being apprehended by coalition forces, which over time will disrupt the ability to organize suicide and roadside bomb attacks, he said.

"It has to be tougher perhaps before it goes easier," said Blotz.

Blotz said the number of civilians killed or wounded in operations involving the international force dropped by 44.4 percent in the past 12 weeks, compared with the same period in 2009.

"In the same period of time, the number of civilian casualties caused by the insurgency increased by 36 percent," Blotz said.

Two Afghan civilians were killed Friday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Marjah district of Helmand province, the Afghan Interior Ministry reported Saturday.

Three Afghan soldiers were killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb Friday in Paktia province in southeastern Afghanistan, according to the deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Dastagir.

Casualties among the U.S. and NATO force also are on the rise this month as thousands of reinforcements stream into Afghanistan — part of President Barack Obama's plan to try to stem the rise of the Taliban.

Five NATO troops including three Americans died in fighting Friday, raising this month's death toll among international forces to 53, including 34 Americans.

June is shaping up to be one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in the nearly nine-year-old Afghan war, as insurgents step up attacks in response to a NATO push into Taliban strongholds in the south.

The deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan was October 2009, when 59 Americans died. The deadliest of the war for the entire international force was July 2009 when 75 troops, including 44 Americans, were killed.

Despite the violence, Defense Secretary Robert Gates insisted Wednesday the U.S.-led force was making progress and complained about negative perceptions taking root in Washington about the war.

"I think that we are regaining the initiative," Gates told a Senate panel in Washington. "I think that we are making headway."

Meanwhile, the relative of a former mujahedeen commander who battled the Soviets was killed in southern Kandahar province. Hamayun Khan was fatally shot outside his home Friday night, Kandahar Police Chief Sher Mohammed Zazai said Saturday.

Khan was related to Gul Alai, a major construction contractor in Kandahar who also once served as chief of intelligence in the southern city.

Turkish warplanes launched air raids at suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq Saturday after a rebel attack on a military outpost in Turkey touched off clashes in which eight soldiers and 12 rebel fighters died, Turkey's military said.

Two other soldiers were killed in a land mine explosion while chasing the rebels, the state-run Anatolia new agency reported, raising the overall death toll in Saturday's violence to 22.

Special forces were immediately sent to reinforce the border area where the clashes occurred and Turkish warplanes bombed detected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq the military said, without providing any further details.

At least 14 other soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

Kurdish rebels have dramatically stepped up attacks in Turkey in recent months, threatening a government attempt to end one of the world's longest guerrilla wars. The military said Friday more than 40 soldiers had been killed since March — including six who died in a rocket attack on a vehicle near a naval base in southern Turkey — and warned it anticipated more attacks.

Turkey's military has responded by sending warplanes across the border for raids on suspected rebel bases while elite commandos crossed the border in pursuit of the rebels in a daylong incursion earlier this week.

The rebels belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, have used northern Iraq as a springboard to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets in their decades-long campaign for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast. The Turkish military says around 4,000 rebels are based just across the border in Iraq and that about 2,500 operate inside Turkey.

The group declared it was increasing attacks on June 1, a day after imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan said in a statement relayed by his lawyers that his calls for dialogue with Turkey had been ignored and that he was giving his consent to the rebel command in northern Iraq to determine which course of action to take.

The military said Saturday's attack occurred at 2 a.m. (2300 GMT Friday) on an outpost near the town of Semdinli — a mountainous region where the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Iran meet. Private NTV television, citing unnamed military sources, said a large group of PKK rebels infiltrated the area from hideouts across the Iraqi border to attack the military unit.

Clashes in the region were continuing sporadically, NTV said.

The United States, which along with the European Union, has declared the PKK to be a terrorist group, has provided intelligence to Turkey in support of its fight against the rebels. Turkey also uses drones it recently purchased from Israel.

Armagan Kuloglu, a retired general and military analyst, said, however, there appeared to be a deficiency in the intelligence and that the advance of the rebels should have been detected.

Saturday's attack was met with outrage among politicians in Turkey.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was determined to press ahead with the fight "until the terrorist organization is eradicated."

A nationalist opposition party, the Nationalist Action Party, called for a wide-ranging ground offensive in northern Iraq, including the establishment of a security zone along the border inside Iraqi territory and operations against PKK commanders believed to be based on Mount Qandil, which sits on the Iranian-Iraqi border.

On Friday, the military said it had killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel positions in northern Iraq last month and in this week's incursion by elite commandos who crossed the border to hunt down a group of PKK rebels who escaped after a failed attack near the border town of Uludere.

Turkey has launched several air and ground incursions into northern Iraq over the 26 years of the insurgency, with mixed results. The rebels have returned to positions along the border soon after the troops have withdrawn.

The Marxist group has been labeled a terrorist organization by the West for killing civilians in urban bombings and arson attacks and slaying government teachers, engineers and clergymen.

The government has extended greater cultural rights to the Kurds such as broadcasts in the Kurdish language on television, in an effort to win their hearts and reduce support for the rebels.

Turkey, however, rejects calls from the Kurdish rebels and politicians to allow education in schools in Kurdish. The language is also barred in parliament and other official settings on the grounds that its use would divide the country along ethnic lines.

The conflict has killed as many as 40,000 people since 1984.

Jose Saramago, who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize although his popularity at home was dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner and sometimes difficult prose style, died Friday.

Saramago, 87, died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands, of multi-organ failure after a long illness, the Jose Saramago Foundation said.

"The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way," the foundation said.

Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonized many, and moved to the Canary Islands after a public spat in 1992 with the Portuguese government, which he accused of censorship.

His 1998 Nobel accolade was nonetheless widely cheered in his homeland after decades of the award eluding writers of a language used by some 170 million people around the world.

"People used to say about me, 'He's good but he's a Communist.' Now they say, 'He's a Communist but he's good,'" he said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said Saramago was "one of our great cultural figures and his disappearance has left our culture poorer."

Born Nov. 16, 1922 in the town of Azinhaga near Lisbon, Saramago was raised in the capital. From a poor family, he never finished university but continued to study part-time while supporting himself as a metalworker.

His first novel published in 1947 — "Terra do Pecado," or "Country of Sin" — was a tale of peasants in moral crisis. It sold badly but won Saramago enough recognition to allow him jump from the welder's shop to a job on a literary magazine.

But for the next 18 years Saramago published only a few travel and poetry books while he worked as a journalist.

"I suppose I came to the conclusion I had nothing worth telling," he said of that period.

He returned to fiction only after the four-decade dictatorship created by Antonio Salazar was toppled by a military uprising in 1974.

International critical acclaim came late in his life, starting with his 1982 historical fantasy "Memorial do Convento," published in English in 1988 as "Baltasar and Blimunda."

The story is set during the Inquisition and explores the battle between individuals and organized religion, picking up Saramago's recurring theme of the loner struggling against authority.

That kind of conflict surfaced in the heated clash Saramago had in 1992 with Portuguese under-secretary of state for culture Antonio Sousa Lara, which prompted Saramago's move to the Spanish islands off northwest Africa.

Sousa Lara withdrew the writer's name from Portugal's nominees for the European Literature Prize. Lara said Saramago's 1991 novel "O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo" ("The Gospel according to Jesus Christ") — in which Christ lives with Mary Magdalene and tries to back out of his crucifixion — offended Portuguese religious convictions and divided the heavily Roman Catholic country.

Saramago was outraged and accused the government of censorship.

Saramago often found himself going against the tide of popular opinion. Portugal's membership of the European Union is overwhelmingly appreciated in his homeland, a country of 10.6 million people which despite EU development aid is still western Europe's poorest country.

Saramago, however, disagreed.

"First of all I'm Portuguese, then Iberian, and then, if I feel like it, I'm European," he once told the AP.

From the 1980s Saramago was one of Portugal's best-selling contemporary writers and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages.

But he never courted the kind of fame offered by literary prizes and his bluntness could sometimes offend.

"I am skeptical, reserved, I don't gush, I don't go around smiling, hugging people and trying to make friends," he once said.

His outspokenness set off a storm of protest in 2002 when during a visit he compared Ramallah, a Palestinian city blockaded at the time by the Israeli army, to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Holocaust survivors and intellectuals, including left-wing doves who were highly critical of the Israeli government's policy toward the Palestinians, condemned Saramago's statement as false and anti-Semitic.

In 1998 he said his book "Blindness" was about "a blindness of rationality." In that book, which was made into a 2008 movie starring Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore, the population of an unnamed city is struck by a mysterious blindness which is never explained. Society's fragilities come to the fore as a general breakdown of infrastructures ensues.

"We're rational beings but we don't behave rationally. If we did, there'd be no starvation in the world," he said.

Such compassion and anxiety about the skewing of priorities in modern society is evident in all his works and also gives a clue to his enduring sympathy toward the Communist Party.

He was frequently compared with Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his writing is often described as realism tinged with Latin-American mysticism, particularly for his technique of confronting historical personages with fictional characters.

Portuguese critic Torcato Sepulveda said Saramago successfully "sought to reconcile the rationalism of his materialistic world view with the richness of his baroque style."

Others disagreed, saying Saramago was too intellectual and that his storytelling pace often slowed to a dreary plod, or that his sparing use of punctuation and speech marks confused the reader.

Saramago had a remedy: "I tell them to read my books out loud and then they'll pick up the rhythm, because this is 'written orality.' It is the written version of the way people tell stories to each other," he said.

Historical and literary mischief were Saramago's trademarks.

In "The History of the Siege of Lisbon," from 1989, a Lisbon proofreader mischievously inserts the word "not" into a text on the 12th century capture of the Portuguese capital from the Moors, thereby fictionally altering the course of European history with a stroke of his pen.

In his 1986 book, "The Stone Raft," the Iberian peninsula snaps off from the rest of the European continent and floats off into the North Atlantic — apparently in a metaphorical search for identity away from the standardizing nature of the EU.

He left a wife, Spanish journalist Pilar del Rio, and a daughter from his first marriage.

The Guardian International Development Achievement Award aims to honour the unsung heroes of international development; those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make a positive difference to the lives and livelihoods of some of the world's most marginalised people.

Nominations are welcome for individuals of any nationality and based anywhere in the world, who - through achievements in work or life - have made an exceptional contribution to efforts to alleviate poverty in the developing world.

Nominees for the Award will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• The extent to which their activities and achievements have had a demonstrable and positive impact on poverty alleviation – either directly or indirectly
• The sustainability of their achievements in terms of longevity, legacy and impact
• The extent to which the nominee's activities and achievements have changed social situations, public attitudes, structures or policies that may be behind the poverty, exclusion or disempowerment of the people affected
• The ways in which the nominee has demonstrated inspirational leadership

Terms and conditions
• One nominee will receive the Award, provided that the quality of entries meets the standard required by the judging panel. If entries do not meet the standard required, the judges reserve the right not to select an Award winner.

• The award is open to individuals who, through achievements in work or life, have made an exceptional contribution to efforts to alleviate poverty in the developing world.

• Your nomination must be accompanied by a written submission of no more than 600 words on why your nominee should be considered for the Award. On submission of your nomination, you will be directed to an automatic confirmation page. No individual emails will be sent confirming the receipt of a nomination.

• You own the copyright in your submission as its author.

• By making a nomination, you give Guardian News & Media Limited (GNM) permission for your submission to be published on the Guardian website and in paper in connection with the Awards.

• Nominees can be a national of and/or living in any country in the world.

• All nominees must be at least eighteen years of age.

• You cannot nominate yourself.

• The Award cannot be made posthumously.

• Employees and their immediate families of Guardian News ; Media Limited (GNM), Department for International Development (DFID) and Marie Stopes International (MSI), and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries and agencies are not eligible to be nominated for the Awards.

• The judging panel will be made up of a representative from each of GNM, DFID and MSI together with an independent judge or judges. Members of the judging panel and their immediate families cannot be nominated. Employees and their immediate families of any organisation of which an independent judge is an employee cannot be nominated.

• Entries must be made in accordance with the instructions given in this entry form and must be received on, or before, the closing date of midnight on 25 July 2010.

• GNM will not accept liability for late or lost entries and illegible or fraudulent entries.

• The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

• The Award winners will be notified by GNM by post and/or email by 1 October 2010.

• If GNM is unable to contact the Award winner using the contact details that have been provided and remains unable to contact the Award winner after a period of 14 days, GNM reserves the right to give the Award to the first runner up.

• The Award winner will be invited to attend a ceremony in November 2010 at which a trophy will be presented. The Award winner will be entitled to bring one guest.

• GNM and MSI will book and pay for transport to the Award ceremony and one night's accommodation in London for an Award winner who is resident in the UK and lives outside London. Transport and accommodation for a guest will also be provided by GNM and MSI.

• No transport or accommodation will be provided for an Award winner or guests who are resident in London.

• Award winners who are resident overseas will be given a return economy class flight, transfers to and from their local airport, transfers to and from an airport in the UK and a maximum of three nights accommodation in London to enable them and a guest to attend the Awards ceremony. Transport and accommodation for their guest will also be provided by GNM and MSI. Three days subsistence allowance will also be provided to the overseas Award winner (but not their guest)

• If an Award winner is unable to travel to the Awards ceremony for any reason, he/she will not be entitled to receive a cash alternative to any accommodation, flights, transfers and other transport which would have been provided.

• All accommodation, flights, transfers and other transport to which an Award winner is entitled will be booked by GNM and MSI.

• Travel insurance, visas, passports and other costs and requirements which are not listed above are the responsibility of the Award winner.

• The Award winner may be required for promotional activity.

• Promoter: Guardian News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU

• GNM has the right to refuse entries which do not comply with the above rules

How to nominate
The competition is open to individuals (NOT organisations) of any nationality and from anywhere in the world who, through achievements in work or life, have made an exceptional contribution to efforts to alleviate poverty in the developing world.

After the deadline, 25 July 2010, a highly qualified judging panel will select a shortlist of five finalists. Descriptions of the five finalists will be featured on this site and Guardian readers and site visitors will be invited to vote for the one they think most deserves the award. The public voting process will run between 6 September - 29 September.

The winner will be announced jointly with the winners of the Guardian International Development Journalism Competition 2010 at an awards ceremony on 18 November 2010 in London.

Moreinfo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/achievementsaward

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.

The Access to Learning Award (ATLA) honors innovative organizations that are opening a world of online information to people in need. The foundation’s Global Libraries initiative invites applications from libraries and similar organizations outside the United States that have created new ways to offer these key services:

* Free public access to computers and the Internet.

* Public training to assist users in accessing online information that can help improve their lives.

* Technology training for library staff.

* Outreach to underserved communities.

The award recipient will receive $1 million (U.S.).

How to Apply for the 2011 Award
1. Download the application from the link below and save it to your computer.
2. Confirm your organization’s eligibility. Please read all the information on the form carefully.
3. Complete the application in English and follow all of the provided instructions.
4. Submit your completed application online.

Eligibility

The 2011 ATLA application form includes a detailed description of eligibility requirements.

Please note:

* Applications are open to institutions outside the United States that are working with disadvantaged communities.

* To be eligible, the applying institution must allow all members of the public to use computers and the Internet free of charge in a community space.

Timeline

* Deadline: All applications must be recieved by September 30.
* Selection: All applicants will be notified of their award status by July.
* Announcement: The foundation will publicly announce the recipient of the 2011 Access to Learning Award in August 2011.

Contact detail: atla@gatesfoundation.org
Moreinfo: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/atla/Pages/access-to-learning-award-overview.aspx

TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world is an autonomous international organization founded in Trieste, Italy, in 1983. TWAS represents the best of science in the developing world. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in the South. Since 1986, TWAS has been supporting scientists and institutions in developing countries through a wide range of programmes that focus on scientific capacity building largely through South-South cooperation.

The administration and financial operation of TWAS is undertaken by UNESCO in accordance with an agreement signed by the two organizations.Each year, the TWAS Fellowship Programme, which operates under agreements with governments and national organizations in developing countries – and particularly with partners in Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Pakistan – offers a number of fellowships to young scientists from developing countries to carry out postgraduate research in countries other than their own.

These programme partners include:

National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil
The TWAS-CNPq Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than Brazil) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in the natural sciences in Brazil. Duration: up to 4 years.

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China
The TWAS-CAS Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than China) who wish to undertake the final year of their PhD research in China. Duration: 1 year.

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India
The TWAS-CSIR Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in newly emerging areas in science and technology for which facilities are available in CSIR laboratories and institutes. Duration: up to 4 years.

Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, India
The TWAS-DBT Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in biotechnology at key biotechnology research institutions in India. Duration: up to 5 years.

S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, India
The TWAS-SN Bose Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in physical sciences. Duration: 4 years (plus possibility of one year extension).

Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), India
The TWAS-IACS Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to obtain a PhD in certain fields of natural sciences, including biological chemistry, condensed matter physics, inorganic chemistry, materials science, non conventional energy, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, polymer science, spectroscopy and theoretical physics. Duration: up to 4 years.

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia
The TWAS-USM Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than Malaysia) who wish to obtain a PhD in one of the fields of natural sciences. Duration: up to 3 years.

The National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), Mexico
The TWAS-CONACYT Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than Mexico) who wish to obtain a PhD in one of the fields of natural sciences. Duration: up to 4 years.

National Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), Pakistan
The TWAS-CEMB Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in molecular biology and molecular genetics. Duration: up to 4 years.

International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), Pakistan
The TWAS-ICCBS Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research offers fellowships to young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to obtain all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their PhD in organic chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular medicine, pharmacology or physical chemistry. Duration: up to 4 years.

Eligibility criteria

*
Applicants already on site in the host country are not eligible.
*
Women scientists are especially encouraged to apply.
*
International travel (return economy class by the shortest route) and visa expenses will be covered by TWAS.
*
Programme partners will provide a stipend to cover living expenses, in some cases also including health insurance. If health insurance is not provided by the programme partner, obtaining suitable health insurance is the candidate’s own responsibility and will be at his/her own expense.
*
All specific obligations, regulations, stipends etc will be thoroughly explained to successful candidates in the award letter/contract.
*
Applicants must provide evidence that they will return to their home country upon completion of their Fellowships.
*
Applicants must submit an official Acceptance Letter from the host institution (see sample on page 5 to TWAS (in all cases) and to the relevant programme partner organization (except in the cases of DBT, S.N.Bose, India; CONACYT, Mexico and ICCBS, Pakistan) when applying, or by the deadline at the latest.
*
The Fellowships do not include provisions for accompanying family members.
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Applications for part-time Fellowships will be considered ineligible.
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Incomplete/unsigned applications will not be accepted. This also applies to submissions by fax and electronic mail, which must include all enclosures and be signed (either digitally or by including a scanned signature).
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Successful applicants must not take up other assignments during the period of their Fellowships.
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Applications will be acknowledged once they have been processed.
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Successful candidates will be notified by February of the year following the application.
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TWAS shall be entitled to a repayment of all or part any funds paid to an applicant hereunder, in the event that the applicant intentionally or negligently fails to fulfil any or all of the present conditions. The applicant agrees to pay any reasonable legal and/or collection costs incurred by TWAS to obtain the repayment.


Contact Details: TWAS Fellowships Office
ICTP campus, Strada Costiera 11
34151 Trieste, Italy
Tel: +39 040 2240 314
Fax: +39 040 2240 689

E-mail: fellowships@twas.org

Moreinfo: http://twas.ictp.it/prog/exchange/fellowships-pg/pg-gen-info