Mois : mai 2006

Linked with our presentation of NAFDAC, the National Administration for Food, Drug Administration and Control.

Goes with ‘Assuming Authority‘.

She’s been credited with saving millions of lives and with moving mountains with sheer dedication to duty. Undoubtedly the Nigerian woman of 2002, she is the most beloved and most popular public official in Nigeria today. Since taking over this important health sector, she has fought persistently with unsurpassed dedication to sanitize the pushing of fake medications and unclean food items. Nigerians were being poisoned by these fake foods and drugs and someone needed to do something seriously about it. (Read more of this long article on kwenu.com).

Dora Nkem Akunyili – Nigeria

She said: « On why she chose pharmacy as a profession, she said it was destined. Her result in secondary school was the best ever in QRC, Nsukka. « When we were to take JAMB, I never thought of pharmacy but wanted a professional course where I could do a lot of chemistry and mathematics. They were my best subjects and I felt giving them up was like giving up my soul ». Nevertheless, she fell in love with the course. « I did not know that God was actually propelling me to what he really wants me to be and coincidentally, it is actually what I want to do ». (Read more of this long article about her on this day online).

Before Dr. Akunyili took over the running of NAFDAC, the agency had functioned merely as a toothless bulldog, but she has radically transformed it into a fierce fighting force. Her well-publicized war on drug abuse is fought relentlessly and the enemy is resisting with every dirty means available. NAFDAC has won several victories in cities most notorious for fake drugs: Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, and Lagos.

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Linked with our presenttions Why are lessons spurned, rather than learned? Also with UNHCR Should Lead the International Humanitarian Enterprise, and finally with Security Council Reform, Problems and Prospects in September 2005.

He asks: « Is the idea of a forward-looking history an oxymoron or a constructive way of improving the future by learning from past mistakes? According to Professor Thomas G. Weiss, it is not an oxymoron, and « learning from the past may be difficult, but that is no excuse for not trying ». With his leadership, this is exactly what the United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP) has set-out as its goal. As he explains, the project’s research seeks to « stand on the shoulders of past giants in order to confront future challenges, to learn from past successes and failures in order to improve multilateral cooperation in the future ». (Read more on this WFUNA-page).

Thomas G. Weiss – USA

He says: « The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) is the nation’s largest grassroots foreign policy organization and the leading center of policy research on the UN and global issues. UNA-USA Policy Briefs are intended to provide background and stimulate discussion on issues related to US foreign policy and the work of the UN. For more information, please visit www.unausa.org ». (Read more on UNA-USA).

He is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the United Nations Intellectual History Project and editor of Global Governance.

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(Excerpt) … Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks, of the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Commission for Human Rights says: « Change in all areas has been difficult and the underlying problem is broadly similar. It is not only in the area of women’s equality where we can see a lack of progress. The same can be said of religious freedom and of progress towards a more representative government. » Ms. Sharifpour-Hicks says Iranians will know that change is occurring when women are given equal rights in areas such as child custody, inheritance, and the transmission of citizenship to their children.

Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks – USA & Iran

During a Hearing in the United Kingdom Parliament, the Examination of Witnesses (Excerpts, Questions 85 – 99), she made the following statements:

– I would add to Steve’s comments that they closed more than 90 newspapers in the last two years. They are using a criminal law—an instrument of a crime for the hands of criminals—and using that law to close newspapers. Recently the remaining reformists that did not get sent to jail have opened web sites and they have their own web sites now. In the last few months the judiciary is thinking of a way of closing web sites and jailing those who are running them. In the past newspapers worked as a political party and a reform agenda was put in those newspapers and that is why they have become a target. The Iranian leader said there should be no amendment to the press law. President Khatami, to his credit, at the beginning promised freedom of expression but unfortunately even though it was prepared by the cabinet, by the President, it has not been introduced to the Parliament to amend the press law.

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He said about himself during the book fair in Geneva, April 2006: « I am a refugy out of Somalia, but I am in the rest of Africa », (meaning, I am at home in Africa).

(Read all this also on kirjasto.sci.fi). Somali novelist, writing in English and Somali. Farah has ofted dealt the history of his country throught the fates of his characters. The central theme in his work is the women’s liberation in postcolonial Somaliland, which he sees as a precondition for political and individual freedom.

Nuruddin Farah – Somalia

The majority of his essays, novels, short stories, plays, and film scripts are written in English, but he has also translated children’s stories from Arabic, Italian, French, and English into Somali. Farah received in 1998 the Neustadt Award.

« What we hear from beginning to end is the daring, lush, urbane voice of the author. Farah writes in English, which would be his second or third language, and his collisions of folkloric, academic and realistic prose produce a startling effect, at times wildly improbable in a way few native speakers would permit themselves…. Yet this means his work is also capable of a freedom and exuberance that might be unavailable if the words were embedded in a clearer context. » (The New York Times Book Review).

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Linked with our presentation of the Speech by Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na’im.

He is a Sudanese academic and human rights activist – A native of northern Sudan, Professor Abdullahi An-Na’im holds an LLB (Honours) from the University of Khartoum, Sudan (1970), an LLB (Honours) and Diploma in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, England (1973) and a PhD in Law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1976).

Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na’im – Sudan

His identity as an African and a Muslim has guided his academic and professional interests as he has strived to reconcile his Islamic faith with his commitment to the universal acceptance of and respect for human rights. An-Na’im is now widely known for his search for a cultural legitimisation of human rights within both African and Islamic contexts and his works on the modernisation of Sharia. This latter interest stems from 1968 when he joined the Islamic reform movement of Ustadh Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, The Republican Brothers, whilst a student at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. By joining the movement An-Na’im demonstrated his commitment to a Sufi reformist doctrine.

In the early 1980s when Islamisation was expanding its grip on the country, the movement and other opposition groups became targets for persecution. In December 1984, the movement was suppressed and Taha executed soon after, leading An – Na’im to leave the country in April 1985. Like many immigrants or exiles, he left hoping that he would be able to return sooner rather than later.

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Linked with our presentation of Islamic Studies in Canada.

Ismat Chughtai was an eminent Indian Urdu writer. She was born in Badayun, Uttar Pradesh and grew up largely in Jodhpur where her father was a civil servant.

Noor Shah writes after her death (excerpt): … There is no denying the fact about her literary greatness. She was really a great short story writer and in the words of Qurratulain Haidar, she was Lady Changez Khan … I want to reproduce an extract from the letter written by film actor Janki Das which he had written immediately after her death. The letter said, ‘Ismat Chughtai had the habit of saying or doing something startling in her life. She had once said that she should be thrown into the sea where fishes would swallow her and when the people would eat the fishes, she would come back to them’. (Read the whole long article in the MG Milli Gazette).

Ismat Chughtai – Pakistan-India (1915 – 1991)

In 1941, she was charged with obscenity for her short story « The Quilt » (« Lihaaf » in Urdu) which dealt with lesbianism, among other issues. She was acquitted after her lawyer successfully argued that the story could not be a corrupting influence because the subject would only be understood by someone who has had a lesbian experience. Along with Rashid Jahan, Wajeda Tabassum and Qurratulain Hyder, Ismat’s work stands for the birth of a revolutionary feminist politics and aesthetics in twentieth century Urdu literature. She explored feminine sexuality, middle-class gentility, and other evolving conflicts in the modern Muslim world. She was briefly associated with the membership of the Urdu Progressive Writer’s Movement in Lucknow. She appeared in Shyam Benegal’s 1978 film Junoon, and she died in Bombay in 1991. (Read the rest of this article on wikipedia).

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