From: EurasiaNet
Published July 31, 2008 07:56 AM.

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/37812

Azerbaijan may have the mega-energy revenues needed to build roads and to refashion its military, but when it comes to regional healthcare, the country's attention appears to be focused elsewhere.

Like many rural Azerbaijanis, Intigam Mammadov, a resident of Imamgulubayli village in southern Azerbaijan's Agdam district, feels shortchanged by the situation. The lack of a well-quipped local hospital cost his father his life in 2006, Mammadov believes, adding that his father was a long-time sufferer from bronchial asthma. "The closest hospital is situated . . . four to five kilometers away from our village," he recounted to EurasiaNet. "But this hospital has neither suitable conditions nor educated doctors. Since the quality of medicalservice is not satisfactory, there are very few people who go there," he said.

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"The geography of healthcare services is very limited," noted the head of one humanitarian organization. Himayat Rizvangizi, director of Himayadar, estimates that some 29 villages in the southern region of Lenkoran, bordering Iran, have no medical facilities. That number climbs to 44 for the northern region of Tovuz and 123 for Guba in northeastern Azerbaijan. The findings are based on research done for Oxfam on child mortality rates in those three regions.

The health ministry's Gadirli puts the number of such villages in "the hundreds."

Given living conditions in Azerbaijan's regions, the situation comes as no surprise to some experts.

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Himayadar's Rizvangizi contended that the ministry could get past that problem by selectively placing clinics in areas with limited public transportation, such as in the mountains. "In the winter, mountainous villages become isolated and cut-off, and people don't know what to do when there is a need for urgent medical aid. For instance, during the winter, patients who live in the mountainous villages of Guba have to walk up to 15 kilometers to reach the nearest medical facility."

Meanwhile, the health ministry has come up with a program with Baku's Medical University to prompt young doctors to head to the regions. Under the initiative, some 70 to 80 percent of the school's graduates will be sent in 2008 to work outside of Baku. Particular emphasis would be placed on sending gynecologists and those with midwifery skills.

From: Reuters
Published July 31, 2008 08:43 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/37819 

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo, home to the world's second largest tropical forest, launched a review of all timber contracts on Wednesday in an effort to clean up a business rife with corruption and to recoup millions of dollars in lost taxes.
The World Bank-sponsored initiative will look at 156 deals. Most were signed during a 1998-2003 war and subsequent interim government accused of awarding numerous dubious logging and mining contracts.

In 2002, with the country partially under the control of rebels, the Democratic Republic of Congo issued a five-year moratorium on new logging contracts as part of efforts to stem rampant deforestation aggravated by the conflict.
The measure went largely unheeded and companies continued to sign newdeals.
Logging and land clearance for farming are eating away the Congo Basin, home to more than a quarter of the world's tropical forest, at the rate of more than 800,000 hectares a year.

Amongst the biggest timber firms operating in Congo are Siforco, which is a subsidiary of Germany's Danzer Group, and Portuguese-owned Sodefor, a unit of holding company NST.
Together with a third company, Safbois, they account for more than 66 percent of the timber exported from Congo, researchers say.

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PROFIT LAUNDERING
Conservation campaigner Greenpeace accused the Danzer Group on Wednesday of employing a system of price fixing and off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes on timber harvested from Congo and neighboring Republic of Congo.