Saturday 6 December 2008

ZIMBABWE DECLARES EMERGENCY: MORE THA 570 DEAD AND MANY INFECTED. PLEASE DO PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE


MUSINA, South Africa -- Zimbabwe's crumbling economy and services have transformed this South African border town into a teeming district of shoppers, asylum-seekers and job hunters. Now something new has traveled south across the river that divides the two countries: cholera.


This week, the front lawn of Musina's lone, 80-bed hospital was a scene of despair. Beneath trees exploding with yellow and red blossoms, more than 100 adults and children lay inside steamy tents and under bushes, intravenous tubes stretching from the backs of their hands to bags of liquid hanging from tree trunks. Some, suffering through the gravest stages of an illness that causes severe diarrhea and dehydration, wore nothing but adult-size diapers.
Nearly all were from Zimbabwe, where the government declared a national emergency Thursday because of the cholera epidemic ravaging its population and reaching farther each day into neighboring countries such as this one. South Africa announced Friday that it would send military doctors to the border to treat cholera victims, and would send clean water and other aid into Zimbabwe, along with a fact-finding team that will recommend additional humanitarian steps.
"At the moment I knew something was wrong, I had to come here to Musina," said Godfrey Mawunganidze, 40, a Zimbabwean cross-border trader who lay under a tree, a damp towel covering his head. "Because if you go to a hospital in Zimbabwe, that's a dead zone."
Zimbabwe's humanitarian and economic crisis is so dire that millions have fled the nation, where sewage and health-care systems are nearly defunct and food is scarce. Cholera, which is spread through contaminated water and food, has become a symbol of the regional spillover of Zimbabwe's devastation.
But as it crosses borders, the outbreak may also serve as a catalyst for neighboring countries to become more involved in ending months of political impasse that has defied regional mediation and international pressure.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Europe, said Friday that the cholera should be a signal to other nations to stand up the government Robert Mugabe, who was re-elected in an internationally condemned election in June. Rice told reporters it was "well past time" for Mugabe to resign. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the deteriorating situation was "a further illustration of the misrule of Zimbabwe's rogue government."
Both Britain and the Netherlands are urging tougher EU sanctions against Mugabe's regime. Mugabe blames Western sanctions for his once-productive nation's ravaged economy and the desperate plight of an increasing number of its citizens.
In recent months, cholera has killed more than 570 people and infected more than 12,700 others in Zimbabwe. The disease has since surfaced in Botswana and Mozambique. Zambia, to the north, is screening for symptoms at border posts.
Health workers in the province surrounding Musina, where cholera was last reported in 2001, have treated more than 435 patients in recent weeks, nearly 90 percent Zimbabwean. The crocodile-infested river along the border here has tested positive for the cholera bacteria, South African health officials said, probably because Zimbabwean communities with no sewage systems are flushing waste into the waterway.

PATRIARCH WHO REVIVED RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH DIES


MOSCOW - Russians prayed for Patriarch Alexiy II at services across the country on Saturday as the ruling body of the Russian Orthodox Church prepared to select an interim leader after his death.
Alexiy, who forged close ties with the Kremlin under former President Vladimir Putin and helped revive the Church after the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Friday at his residence outside Moscow. He died of heart failure after a long illness.
At Orthodox church services across Russia's 11 time zones, people said prayers through the night for Alexiy, who helped heal an 80-year rift with a rival faction set up abroad by monarchists fleeing the atheist Bolsheviks.
A Holy Synod will meet on Saturday to elect an interim Patriarch, known as the Patriarchal Locum Tenens. A wider synod will then convene to elect a new leader within six months.
"A session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church will take place on December 6 to elect Patriarchal Locum Tenens who will chair the Memorial Commission," a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchy said.
Alexiy will be laid in state on Saturday in the giant Christ the Saviour Cathedral in central Moscow, rebuilt during Alexiy's reign after its destruction under Stalin. His funeral will take place on Tuesday, the Patriarchy said.
Believers laid hundreds of red and white roses at the Patriarch's office in central Moscow, a Reuters reporter said. White roses were said to be Alexiy's favorite.
Alexiy, who criticized the Catholic Church for trying to steal converts, is credited by many Russians for helping to revive Orthodoxy and boost church attendance in the moral and spiritual vacuum created the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Despite Soviet-era suppression of believers -- and the destruction of hundreds of churches under Stalin -- Orthodoxy remains a key part of life for millions of Russians.


ALEXIY'S LEGACY
Alexiy also steered a careful path for the Orthodox Church, which was riddled with divisions, especially during the upheavals of the 1990s.
"Alexiy's main achievement was to keep the Church together in this period of growth and turmoil," Andrei Zolotov, an expert on the Russian Orthodox Church, said by telephone from the United States.
"The Patriarch steered a very careful centrist path in the development of the church when it was threatened with being literally being torn apart politically, theologically and in many other regards too," Zolotov said.
Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, who both attended major Orthodox Ceremonies with Alexiy, praised the Patriarch's role in helping form Russian statehood and for uniting the nation.

' SERIAL SHOOTER ' SUSPECT HAUSNER EXCELS AT BIBLE STUDY




MARICOPA COUNTY - In times of trial, men turn to God.
Since at least January 2007, Dale Hausner, a suspect in the "Serial Shooter" case, has spent his jail time studying the Bible. And according to records obtained by The Republic, he was baptized in May while in jail awaiting trial.
Hausner, 35, is suspected of killing eight people and 10 animals and wounding more than a dozen other people in a Valley-wide shooting spree in 2005 and 2006 that lasted 16 months.


He is charged with 87 crimes, including the murders and several counts of drive-by shooting, attempted murder, aggravated assault and cruelty to animals.
His trial has just entered its fourth month in Maricopa County Superior Court.
Prosecutors have nearly finished discussing the crime scenes and have taken testimony from more than 100 witnesses, including many of the surviving shooting and stabbing victims.
In coming weeks, prosecutors will begin to present the evidence obtained by police wiretaps in the Mesa apartment shared by Hausner and co-defendant Sam Dieteman.
Dieteman, 33, previously pleaded guilty to two murders and a third attack and is expected to take the witness stand against Hausner after the winter holidays.
Hausner continues to say he is innocent.
And he has spent the two years of his incarceration taking more than 50 religious correspondence classes with titles such as "John's Gospel, Basic Bible Survey," "Old Testament" and "Teaching Ministry."
His transcripts from Prisoners of Hope Ministries, a Youngtown-based ministry that organizes religious services for prisoners and provides Bible-study material, show that he has consistently received "A" grades on his coursework.
"He's a pretty sharp cookie," said Carol Carper from Prisoners of Hope. Her husband, Jim, a pastor, visits Hausner in jail.
Because of his status as a maximum-security inmate, Hausner does not attend group worship services. Instead, the pastor comes to him. Hausner gets the study materials through the jail chaplain.
"Hausner has been a model prisoner," said Doug Matteson, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
Dieteman has had three disciplinary "write-ups" for threatening detention officers, hoarding jail-issue clothing and trying to head-butt a deputy while being transported between court and the jail.