From Women in Law in Southern Africa … here’s a copy of an order from the High Court of Zimbabwe in a case that challenged the authority of the Registrar General to compel married women to change their surnames into those of their husbands.

The order was issued by consent but it was a declaratory order so it protects all women in similar circumstances.  Hats off to Saru Njerere of Honey and Blackenberg who represented the applicants.

In the continued fight against HIVAIDS, Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and Population Services International (PSI) have set a goal of circumcising 1.2 million men by 2015. Since the launch of PSI’s, GetSmart or Pinda Musmart male circumcision campaign in 2010, about 40,000 men have gone under the knife. Other countries are following Zimbabwe’s example and getting behind the male circumcision, in fighting HIV. Rwanda is another country that has most recently jumped on the male-circumcision bandwagon, and they have done so in a most innovative manner.

Rwanda is introducing a painless, non-surgical circumcision that causes no bleeding!

Read more below:

Circumcision has been shown to lower the risk of HIV transmission and infection in Africa. Now, a new device known as the PrePex enables circumcision to be performed without surgery or any blood loss, by nurses, who don’t need extensive training to use the apparatus.

The Rwandan Government has completed its third trial of PrePex with nearly 600 volunteers and has concluded the device is a safe and efficient way of performing circumcisions. It now aims to reduce new HIV infections by fifty percent, in part through a campaign to circumcise two million adult men over the next two years.

The results were presented at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Africa (ICASA).

Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS said:

“Innovation is key to achieving our target of 20 million voluntary adult male circumcisions by 2015 and saving millions of lives. Devices such as PrePex have the potential to facilitate safe and rapid scale up of male circumcision for HIV prevention, an urgent need in Sub Saharan Africa.

We commend the government of Rwanda for progressing the science of HIV prevention for the benefit of the region.”

An evaluation from the World Health Organization said the study of the PrePex device provides further clinical evidence that circumcision performed by nurses when using the PrePex device is fast, safe and effective, enabling a bloodless procedure that requires no injected anesthesia, no sutures and no sterile settings.

Agnes Binagwaho, MD, M(Ped) PhD hc, The Minister of Health of Rwanda said:

“We are unwilling to allow our health system resource challenges to dissuade us from our mission: to create a healthier, HIV-free Rwanda. We are committed to finding innovative, safe and effective solutions to make this happen …

This study shows that with the non-surgical PrePex device we can safely task-shift circumcision from surgeons and family physicians to nurses, which if nationally scaled up, would make a significant contribution to our public health system.”

Controversy regarding circumcision and HIV risk
There has been some controversy regarding the effectiveness of circumcision to prevent the spead of the HIV virus. Circumcision rates are far higher in the United States than in Western Europe, yet HIV cases remain stubbornly higher in the US and W. Europe, contrary to what might be expected if circumcision is so effective.

While many doctors are in agreement as to its effectiveness in Africa, the topic has its detractors that range from those demanding more research and scientific proof, some who point to contradictory findings from several studies, to wild conspiracy theories.

How does the device work?
The device basically works by stopping the flow of blood to the foreskin. It remains in situ for a week, after which time it is removed along with the foreskin that has died due to lack of circulation.

The average time for installation of the device is less than three minutes, with the advantage that it doesn’t involve surgery or cause blood loss, and thus can be performed by nurses.

The device and procedure, which can be performed in a regular doctor’s consulting room has an AE rate of 0.34% (2 out of 590), and the total study adverse event (AE) rate when performed by nurses was 0.83%. All resolved with minimal intervention, and the AE rate was lower than previously reported AE rates for surgical male circumcision when performed by surgeons (4.8%).

In Rwanda there are only 300 trained physicians for around 10 million people, and nearly 90 percent of the population live in rural areas that lack sterile facilities.

Analysis shows that scaling up circumcision via surgical procedures would drain resources from surgeons who work in vital life saving areas, not to mention the likely resistance from the local population.

The study was approved by the Rwanda National Ethics Committee and was conducted in Kanombe Hospital, Kigali Rwanda, between July 2011 and October 2011.

Source

C.E.E. (Climate Economic Empowerment)
By Comrade Fatso

Comrades I’m sure you’ve heard of the crisis in the world today
Floods in France, disappearing islands and droughts in Zimbabwe
How do we deal with all our carbon emissions rising
With global warming, increased instability and insane petrol pricing
Comrades I would like to announce my brand new policy
I call this policy C…E…E…
Its simply entitled Climate Economic Empowerment
How to make money from mother nature and from the environment
Because climate is the new bling
The new diamonds, the new shiny, spangly thing
We’ve run out of ways to make money for a living
But, comrades, now we have carbon markets and carbon trading
So will we save the planet? Hell muthafukking no!
But we’ll have the biggest, most fantastic party til we hit ground zero
So lets co-opt the NGO’s and some scholarly scholars
Coz we wanna go green like freshly minted US dollars
So in that sense yes we are the real green party
Because nature is time and time is money
So give us your money and give it to us by the tonne
Put it in my bank account – it’s called the Green Climate Fund!

The New York Times Lede blog reports:

During a protest in Bahrain on Saturday, an American journalist named Matthew Cassel reported on Twitter that he had just witnessed something remarkable:

A short time later, after a photograph and brief video clip of the woman standing her ground in front of a line of police vehicles was uploaded to Twitter, readers of Mr. Cassel’s feed identified her as Zainab Alkhawaja, an activist whose own Angry Arabiya Twitter feed is devoted to documenting the protest movement in Bahrain.

Read the full story here

To commemorate World AIDS Day, Kubatana invited subscribers to send in their positive prevention messages. Using Frontline SMS, we received over 600 messages in response, and short listed them for selection.

The word cloud above shows gives a visual of the words most used in our subscribers’ responses.

The winning SMS came from Lloyd Nyarota, who said:

To prevent HIV transmission, try various sex positions with one partner NOT one position with various partners.

The runners up responded:

• A cat has many lives but we humans got one only. Be wise and be warned. AIDS kills the one we got.
• Stick to one partner. Always use condoms. Do masturbation if you have feelings during the absence of your partner.
• One Love. Learn the facts about HIV. Be faithful. Talk openly. Use condoms consistently.
• Everyone is positive until proven negative. Get tested!

Read the rest of the prevention SMS here