“…Sex before marriage is not only breaking school rules but against religion and norms of all cultures in Uganda and having pre-marital sex is considered a form of deviance. … Condoms are not 100% perfect protective gear against STDs and HIV infection. This is because condoms have small pores that could still allow the virus through…”
— Excerpt from a draft US-funded secondary school curriculum, August 2004

“I wish those who preach abstinence would come down to the slums and see how people are living. Abstinence is a message for the elite. It has no place in the slums. These girls [orphans] live five to a room. There is no supper for them. The man outside says he will get her money and a place to sleep. Now, what is she going to do, abstain? These orphans need assistance, services, and access to protection, not judgmental messages. Better to be delivering services than abstinence messages. Around here, they are a waste of time and money.”
— Youth activist working in Kawempe neighborhood, Kampala.

Just say no — that blighted, hypocritical campaign espoused by Nancy and Ronny Reagan back in the ‘80s against drugs while all the time the CIA et al were using drug money to run campaigns in Central America. That mantra — just say no — is back in different circumstances and is causing havoc to a nation that until recently could claim to be on of the leading exponents in tackling the ravages of HIV and AIDS.

Uganda in east Africa had managed to reduce its exposure to the deadly virus that is killing generation after generation in sub-Saharan Africa. And then George W Bush stepped in with his millions of dollars and the country finds it self in trouble once again. No A-grader, Dubya’s mixing of science with his warped religious ethics (See Terri Schiavo NICK LINK) are causing death to spread in a nation that had reduced its HIV count by 5% in 10 years. An American backed scheme promoting the idea of abstinence only in the country is causing trouble, according to an 80-page report entitled “The less they know, the better: Abstinence-only HIV/AIDS programs in Uganda” by Human Rights Watch.

Abstinence-only programs deny young people information about any method of HIV prevention other than sexual abstinence until marriage. Draft secondary-school materials state falsely that latex condoms have microscopic pores that can be permeated by HIV, and that pre-marital sex is a form of “deviance.” HIV/AIDS rallies sponsored by the U.S. government spread similar falsehoods.

“These abstinence-only programs leave Uganda’s children at risk of HIV,” said Jonathan Cohen, a researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program and one of the report’s authors.

US officials describe their strategy in Uganda as “ABC” — a popular acronym standing for “Abstinence, Be Faithful, use Condoms.” However, Human Rights Watch’s new report documents how condoms are left out of the equation, especially for young people. Uganda faces a nationwide condom shortage due to new government restrictions on condom imports.

“Uganda is gradually removing condoms from its HIV/AIDS strategy, and the consequences could be fatal,” said Tony Tate, a researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Children’s Rights Division and the report’s co-author.

The US government has already budgeted approximately US$8m this year on abstinence-only programs in Uganda as part of President George W. Bush’s global AIDS plan. The National Youth Forum, headed by Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni, a vocal proponent of abstinence-only, has received US funding under the plan despite having been deemed “not suitable for funding” by a technical panel of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Abstinence-only programs are a triumph of ideology over public health,” said Cohen. “Americans should demand that HIV-prevention programs worldwide stick to science.”

Uganda gained a reputation in the 1990s for its high-level leadership against HIV/AIDS and acceptance of sexually candid HIV-prevention messages. This has all gone to waste as science and warped ethics have merged to the detriment of society.

A few years ago the little red email learnt that not one of the 70 odd staff of the South China Sea Environmental Protection Agency ate shellfish for fear of the high levels of lead and mercury in the aforementioned marine crustaceans. A scary thought really, though in that half wit fashion that is redolent of the little red email we continued to chow down all the prawns, crabs and lobsters that our wallets could afford — a not inconsiderable amount given that we hail from an island in Hong Kong famous for its seafood.

Now the latest issue of the Lancet Neurology magazine has more worrying food for thought on this subject. Eating seafood containing toxic substances can have serious neurological as well as gastrointestinal effects. Indeed, in parts of the Pacific the number of cases of marine poisoning surpasses 1,200 per 100,000 people per year.

The article, compiled by senior members of Charles Darwin University in Australia, details the three major clinical syndromes that occur after easting toxic seafood: ciguatera, puffer fish poisoning and shellf ish poisoning.

Ciguatera poisoning affects the nerves and gut and are likely to be found in red bass and snapper, coral trout from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, spotted cod, mackerel and moray eels. “The toxins accumulate in the fish over time,” says Dr Matthew Kiernan, one of the authors of the study, “and it is usually the larger, older fish that are a problem.”

Another poisoning comes from puffer fish that contain tetrodotoxin, mainly in Japan. Effects from the tetrodotoxin can be numbness, even respiratory failure. Other symptoms include slurred speech, lost co-ordination (last seen in the little red email around eight days ago — merci, Stephane pour la calvados!) as well as paralysis in worst case scenarios.

Finally there the problems from shellfish, especially those fish coming from fisheries in temperate climes. Shellfish make up 1.1% of all food-borne illnesses in the US and the three neurological toxic syndromes resulting from a dodgy shellsish are paralytic, neurortoxic and amnesic.

If you do not know what has been plonked down on a plate in front of you, beware is the scientists’ simple advise. And if you live around heavily polluted Hong Kong or China take heed of that alarming fact at the top of this story re the protection agency’s dietary choices.

Yahuda Bangs, the little red email’s own angry American abroad casts his jaundiced eye over the US’ China coverage, and finds it wanting.

Sifting through American media for stories about China I’m reminded of something P.J. O’ Rourke wrote nearly two decades ago about the western media’s “discovery” of Eastern Europe shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union. In a story about Warsaw in the 1980’s, O’Rourke quotes a media savvy Pole as saying of the objectives of Western media coverage of Poland

“Your articles show that there are no polar bears walking the streets”*

Twenty years later, and despite the fact that the Western Media has far more interest (not to mention reporters on the ground) in China, most articles written about China seem to be about how — despite preconceived Western notions — there are no panda bears walking the streets of Shanghai and Beijing. In other words, we thought they were different, but really they’re just like us. With the exception of coverage of a few hard news events (the current anti-Japanese demonstrations, for example), most articles written by casual journalists traveling through China are hopelessly clichéd, trite fluff pieces that amount to nothing wrapped in a word count.

Recently, well known New York securities mogul Henry Blodget traveled to China to do a series of articles for Slate Magazine. Known best for his zealous stock recommendations during the dot-com heyday (and subsequent discrediting when the bubble burst), Blodget had apparently, in the waning months of 2004, caught wind of the fact that China might — just might — be ripe for investment. Like a bloodhound on the trail of aging leftovers, Blodget left for China, apparently enthusiastic after discovering that not only were foreigners now allowed to use regular money (as opposed to Waihuijuan, better known as Foreign Exchange Certificates or FEC, which foreigners in China were forced by law to use before the law was scrapped in 1994) but that Mao suits are now only an optional fashion accessory.

Being a Slate reader, I followed Blodget’s journey with great interest, hopeful that this nominally progressive online newsmagazine might finally be breaking new ground in American media coverage of China. Disappointment came quickly as it became evident that Blodget’s skill for stating the obvious (one Forbes article refers to Blodget as “Merrill Lynch’s Master of the Obvious”) had only grown sharper with age. Hitting the ground with both feet running in Hong Kong, Blodget noted that there were no longer junks in Hong Kong harbour (not actually true, but he made this observation from the deck of the Star Ferry), and that Hong Kongers ate strange food. After a promising article about how the Shanghai mag-lev is fast, not terribly convenient, and losing money hand over fist, Blodget regales Slate’s readership of millions with that most worn-out of westerners-writing-about-China clichés, China’s abundance of fake DVDs. This is the cut-and-paste template for journalists wanting to write something “interesting” about China without going more than four blocks from their hotel and/or tourists looking for something to send to their email list. Finally, in his latest expose, Blodget travels from Beijing to discovers what my 11-year-old niece in America already knows: Chinese peasants are poor.

Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair to Mr Blodget, who is neither a professional journalist or a seasoned China veteran. And perhaps it was foolish of me to expect anything better from Slate; after all, this is the magazine that just a few weeks ago ran a number of editorial cartoons about Tung Chee-hwa in a section titled “China vs. Taiwan” (and didn’t bother to correct their error even after being informed that TCH’s stepping down was an unrelated issue). Unfortunately, Slate’s innocent abroad approach to China is typical of most American news outlets reporting from the world’s most populated, fastest growing, and (many argue) most economically important country: Dole out without fail a steady diet of no-calorie pap that, with very few exceptions, says nothing that hasn’t been said ad naseum before.

This is a shame, and for two reasons: First, few places on earth are as replete with change (both good and bad) and newsworthy stories (ditto) as China in this decade. And second, lacking practical knowledge about China, only the most educated Americans will know whether Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei or Hong Kong offer the best opportunities for potential English teachers, exotic maids, or strippers when the American economy finally collapses in the next decade.

* Excerpted from “What do they do for fun in Warsaw” — Rolling Stone, 1986

The little red email may well have found a seemingly unlikely third political hero for the upcoming May 5 general election in Britain.

Patricia Tabram, a 66-year-old grandmother from Northumberland, escaped a jail sentence Friday for cooking cannabis cakes, soups and casseroles for herself, neighbours and friends. The judge said he did not want to make her a martyr.

“I don’t think I was a martyr but maybe I am a modern-day Emily Pankhurst.”

Now the northern England herorine of the little red email is mulling running for election next month. She is likely to stand in the Neath seat in south Wales held by House of Commons leader and Labour MP Peter Hain as part of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance.

On the wonders of has, the newly political Mrs Tabram said: “I think it is a better medicine than what you receive from the [National Health Serrvice]. But I am no more addicted to cannabis than I am to soap operas.”

We recall Howard Marks’ efforts in Norwich a couple of elections back where he handed out free grass seeds to passers by — beats your average political flyer.

Since her arrest last month Mrs Tabram concocted a number of new receipes including chicken, leek and cannabis pies and cannabis curry and is now seeking a publisher for her biographical cookbook ‘Grandma Eats Cannabis’. She was raided in May last year and police found 8.5 ounces of potent skunk worth 854 pounds. The cops also found scales and 31 marijuana plants in her home. The former full time chef admitted possessing the drug with intent to supply, often buying as much as a ‘nine bar’.

Now freed with a six month sentence suspended dfor two years, and her lawyer claiming she used the herb to relieve both physical and mental stress, she says she will continue to use the weed though not to deal it.

“I only got cannabis once for my friends [aged 89, 87, 79, 74 and 47] who have similar medical problems. Now a young man has arranged for it to be delivered to their doors,” she said outside the court, adding: “I’ll continue to cook for them if they get the right ingredients.”

One thing that has always concerned the waistline conscious little red email about cooking with hash is surely one enters a viscous circle of constant munchies. Nevertheless, here’s our favourite recipe: The Leary Biscuit.

The little red email abhors advertising. Hell, we could be making a fast buck buy some flashy ad at the top of this here email, but it would be going against our beliefs.

Nevertheless, one advertising campaign in Hong Kong did catch our eye lately. Fitness First, a gym in the Special Administrative Region, is trying to boost membership by pointing out that in order to burn off a Big Mac meal, one would have to walk nearly all the steps of the city’s highest skyscraper, IFC2, which at 412m or 1,352 feet ranks sixth tallest in the world. Anyone scoffing a non super-sized Big Mac meal would need top walk 82 out of IFC2’s 88 stories to burn off the 982 kilocalories — the equivalent of running on a treadmill for 90 minutes , or doing 245 consecutive push-ups. The gym made the estimates based on approximate rules that one staircase equates to 1 kcal.

Sadly, the kids in Hong Kong are unlikely to get anywhere near climbing this summit since McDonald’s has now started delivering to schools, to the chagrin of many a parent.

The awful truth of the oh so innutritious contents at McDonald’s can be found here ... keep on running!!!

A hotchpotch of stuff we’ve found and enjoyed recently on the Weird Wide Web.

Get your lovely T-shirts while they’re hot!
Everybody loves a winner. Nobody likes a loser. Nobody likes to be a loser. So with this in mind, Canned Revolution have set it up so that you can now buy your own Canned Revolution T-Shirt, and pretend that you won it in our competition. We’ll back up any claims to being a lucky winner by anyone who purchases a freshly tinned t-shirt to help the cause.

Owning your own Canned Revolution shirt could be a great way of life for you — imagine the friends, the opportunities, the fame, the copious offers of gratuitous sex.

Don’t delay! Buy your way into coolness today by clicking here.

 

If you fancy your luck, on the other hand...
You could try our latest competition! Yes, that’s right: another chance to be cool for free. Head on over to here to try your luck in our latest revolutionary contest.

 

Post pooh poohs political shirts
Canned Revolution’s fashion label received a much needed credibility boost this week with the ultra fluffy Sunday Post magazine of Hong Kong turning our shirts down for a possible photoshoot as, to quote the fashion editor, “… they are too political”. Anything that appears in the Sunday offshoot of the South China Morning Post has to be asscociated with the correct name brands or models. Not quite Canned Revolution’s staple as our enraged columnist Yahuda Bangs observed.
“Why don’t you get Karen Mok to wear one of the shirts?” he suggested referring to one of Hong Kong’s leading models and a regular of the magazine that is the epitome of corporate fluffiness refusing to ruffle anyone’s feathers.
“No, better yet, why don’t you kidnap Karen Mok for the expressed purpose of doing a modeling shoot, a la King of Comedy kind of thing, get the pictures put in all the papers, then get caught and write a tell all about the inherent phoniness of the HK fashion industry? Zowie, there’s a tale for you?” the wacky Mr Bangs continued.
“You’ll probably only get 3-5 years, as long as you don’t rough her up or anything, and when you get out you’ll be fending ’em off with a stick.I get ten percent for giving you the idea, BTW.”

 

Why We Fight
Not the WWII Frank Capra propaganda movies, but a BBC documentary looking at the US Military Industrial Complex, what propels it, how it self-perpertuates and how the idea of US military supremacy shapes foreign policy much more than any of the cover ideas of freedom or democracy.

 

Holy Neo Cons, Batman! Perle Gets Vatican Nod
With thanks to SY Abamowitz from The Not In Our Times Company for sending us this latest exclusive from the Vatican conclave:
Perle Gets Vatican Nod
By SY ABRAMOWITZ published April 5, 2005
President Bush today announced his nomination of Richard Perle to succeed John Paul II as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Perle, the sixty-three year old neoconservative strategist would become the Church’s first Jewish pontiff.
Bush touted Perle as a great American who can guide the faith through difficult times. “Richard understands the Church’s crucial role in Latin America. He will bring a new theology, a new discipline, to the drug smugglers and banana republic leaders who impede freedom and democracy down there.”
Perle’s connections in the Arab world, including Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi, and Ahmed Chalabi are also expected to pay dividends.
“Islamic people value liberty,” Bush said. “Richard will liberate them. Teach them the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount, poverty, generosity, turning the other cheek.”
Perle is managing partner of Trireme, a security and defense venture capital firm. He recently stepped down from the Defense Policy Board, of which he was chairman from 2001-2003. He is a member of the Council On Foreign Relations, as well as a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and a Trustee of the Hudson Institute.
Known to his political adversaries as the “Prince of Darkness", Perle was also a signatory to Rebuilding America’s Defenses, the influential 2000 report by the Project For A New American Century. Said David Webb, spokesman for Peace In Our Times, “This nomination continues a disturbing trend. Wolfowitz, John Bolton, now Richard Perle. What’s next, John Ashcroft for President of France?”
copyright 2005 The Not In Our Times Company

 

Low Carbon Lifestyle Plan
No, it’s not the latest replacement for the atkins diet thingy, it’s the energy saving trust’s guide to how you can lead a greener life, following on from our numerous reports on easy measures to help out save the environment.

 

Calling all adbusters
Here’s yet another chance to lay your hands on one of our t-shirts.
Simply brush up your Photoshop skills and send your finest corporate subversion images in to adbusting@cannedrevolution.com, such as Apple’s new personal torture device: the iRaq or Coke’s new Vietnam Campaign from these guys or even a home grown one (see below) or to stand a chance of being selected the weekly winner of our brand new little red adbuster of the week competition. The winner will be chosen by the revolutionary collective here on our own Fantasy Island.

Alternatively, for those who don’t fancy your chances of winning but are still budding anti-establishment artists and hanker for one of our shirts, you still have hope. Simply send us five of your designs in five consecutive weeks and, so long as the images, are yours (and we have ways of checking!), a t-shirt will be winging its way to you.

Adbusting — the choice of a new generation. For more on adbusting, click here.

 

Record death count: 3,797 executed in 2004
During 2004, more than 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries and at least 7,395 were sentenced to death in 64 countries, Amnesty International reported last week.
Releasing its annual worldwide statistics on the use of capital punishment, Amnesty International called on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva, to condemn the death penalty as a violation of fundamental human rights.
"The figures released today are sadly only the tip of the iceberg. The true picture is hard to uncover as many countries continue to execute people secretly — contravening United Nations standards calling for disclosure of information on capital punishment,” said Amnesty International.
A few countries accounted for the majority of executions carried out during 2004. China executed at least 3,400 people, but sources inside the country have estimated the number to be near 10,000.
Iran executed at least 159, and Viet Nam at least 64. There were 59 executions in the USA, down from 65 in 2003.
"Despite the worldwide trend towards abolition, these figures highlight the ongoing need for concerted action by the international community to consign the death penalty to history.”
“It is worrying that the vast majority of those executed in the world did not have fair trials. Many were convicted on the basis of ?evidence? extracted under torture.”
In 2004, Ryan Matthews became the 115th prisoner in the USA since 1973 to be released from death row on the grounds of innocence.
“The case of Ryan Mathews and scores of others sentenced to death in the USA for crimes they did not commit demonstrate that no judicial system is infallible. However sophisticated the system, the death penalty will always carry with it the risk of lethal error,” Amnesty International said.

For more information on Amnesty International’s work against the death penalty, please click here.

 

He has risen!
The Pope has been born again as comic strip hero.

 

EPA cancels ethically questionable tests
A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study, called the Children’s Health Environmental Exposure Research Study, which planned to offer poor families a camcorder, $970 and a T-Shirt to participate in a study looking at the effect of pesticides and household chemicals on children’s health has been cancelled. The study, based in Florida, was postponed last Novemeber after many felt it was questionable. Senator Barbara Boxer, who called for the study’s cancellation as a condition to agreeing to Stephen Johnson’s appointment as head of the EPA, focused on the emotional aspect of children at risk:
“I am very pleased that Mr. Johnson has recognized the gross error in judgment the EPA made when they concocted this immoral program to test pesticides on children. The CHEERS program was a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom, and I am just happy that it was stopped before any children were put in harms way.”
In fairness, the study appears to have been designed merely to test if children were being exposed to pesticides, and by how much, rather than to deliberately expose them, but the issue is something of an ethical minefield.
However, perhaps more questionable was the study’s funding: $2 million of the study’s $9 million dollar budget was from the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents chemical makers.

 

The Little Red Email Osama bin Laden Sweepstakes Shirt Contest!
Don’t forget: if you fancy a free Canned Revolution t-shirt, you can win one by simply guessing the date of Osama’s media debut as a US prisoner. Send your expected date of bin Laden’s first television appearance as an American prisoner to osamasweepstakes@cannedrevolution.com.