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| India-Pakistan | |
| Bomb kills polio health official | |
| 2007-02-16 | |
| A senior health official has been killed and three guards injured in a bomb blast in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials say. The dead man, Abdul Ghani Khan, played a key role in a polio immunisation drive in the Bajaur tribal region. Dr Khan was returning from a meeting of tribal elders to persuade them to end their opposition to the campaign. It is not clear if he was targeted because of his work to eradicate polio in the area.
Two of the three guards travelling with Dr Khan are in a serious condition after the blast, in a village around 50kms (30 miles) northeast of Khar, the main town in the Bajaur tribal region. Pro-Taleban militants are known to be active in the area. | |
| Posted by:john |
| #9 When you coming back sailor man? Our needs are many, but our faith in you is pure. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-02-16 19:44 |
| #8 fair enuf! I'm quite enamored of the "Commodore Frank" label ...LOL, although my kids still call me "Dad", and snicker behind my back when I answer the phone as "Commodore Frank". Alaska Paul is guilty of falsely elevating my self-esteem, dammit! Ima victim :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-02-16 18:49 |
| #7 John Frum.... isn't this outta your fiefdom but plain "john" is so boring. I'm quite taken with this "John Frum" - being a minor south pacific deity is cool. |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-02-16 18:42 |
| #6 message to Perv: you're the leader of a country. You have an army. They have "powerful extremist clerics". Who is in charge. If a bullet ended the tenure of these clerics, wouldn't you be DOING YOUR JOB??? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-02-16 18:38 |
| #5 er.... John Frum.... isn't this outta your fiefdom :-) Next, they'll decry the poor quality of Jooooo-designed crutches and wheelchairs |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-02-16 18:36 |
| #4 LAHORE: The parents of 24,000 children in northern Pakistan refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations last month, mostly due to rumours that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilise innocent Muslim children, The Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday. The disinformation - spread by extremist clerics using mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations, and by word of mouth - has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan and hit global efforts to eradicate the debilitating disease, the newspaper said. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 39 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2006, up from 28 in 2005. The disease is concentrated in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where 60 percent of the refusals were attributed to “religious reasons”. “It was very striking. There was a lot of anti-American propaganda as well as some misconceptions about sterilisation,” said Dr Sarfaraz Afridi, a campaign manager with the WHO in Peshawar. The NWFP government made strenuous efforts to counter talk of an “infidel vaccine”. Health workers fanning across the province last month were equipped with copies of a fatwa (religious order), endorsing the vaccinations and signed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leaders of Pakistan’s most powerful religious parties. The move reassured many doubters. Although only 24,000 children missed the vaccine, the WHO officials said failure to vaccinate in small pockets of the country gave the virus a fresh toehold to spread. The vaccination struggle is entangled with the confrontation between the government and powerful militants in the tribal areas. Refusals were highest in areas where conservative clerics and self-styled “Pakistani Taliban” fighters hold sway, flouting government authority and making their own strict laws. Almost 2,000 children were not vaccinated in Bajaur, a tribal agency on the Afghan border. In nearby Swat Valley, a young firebrand cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, denounced the polio campaign through a local FM radio station. Almost 4,000 children were not vaccinated in Swat. Imran Khan, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said: “Some people feel they are under attack here ... That is clouding their attitudes.” Aid workers fear they are being pushed into the frontline of the struggle between the government and tribal militants. Last weekend a grenade was lobbed into a Red Crescent compound in Peshawar, damaging vehicles but killing nobody. Cleric Mufti Khalid Shah declared a fatwa on employees of the UN, WHO and all other foreign organisations. “Killing their employees is in line with the teachings of jihad in Islam,” said a notice. Recently aid workers in Bannu were threatened with death. |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-02-16 18:07 |
| #3 Let Allan cure 'em. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-02-16 18:01 |
| #2 "Some tribal leaders say the vaccine is a part of a US conspiracy to reduce fertility and reproduction rates." Well, Jonas Salk was from New York and Jewish. If that doesn't confirm their warped mentality nuthin will. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2007-02-16 13:58 |
| #1 You try to help/save these ignorant idiots and how do they treat you!!!! |
| Posted by: Ebbolump Glomotle9608 2007-02-16 12:57 |