When the world's rising population hit the historic seven billion milestone last October, the United Nations predicted that population growth will continue to increase, reaching an estimated 9.3 billion by the year 2050.

Fifty years ago when Sierra Leone gained independence after 150 years of colonial rule, with it came a feeling of optimism that along with a newfound control of its governance, the country would profit from its ample endowment of natural resources, like timber, fish, minerals and oil. Instead, in the last 50 years, the country has had 13 military coups and an 11-year civil war that left the economy in ruins and the country heavily reliant on foreign donor funding.

Maheen was nine years old when she witnessed the death of her elder brother. At the age of 10 she saw the dead body of her neighbour, killed in the crossfire between Kashmiri rebels and Indian security forces, his guts spilled out on the road.

As U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro once put it, "Women hold the keys to unlocking the barriers to sustainable development."

[State Department] International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting

[World Bank] Washington DC - The World Bank and Fotopedia, the publisher of popular iOS apps and winner of the Best Tablet App of the Year Crunchies Award, today announced their collaboration on a new free app titled "Women of the World" for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. "Women of the World" takes users on an eye-opening tour and educational look into the lives of women all across the world.

Blogger and writer Antônio Mello reproduces a denouncement [pt] by the new Minister of the Special Secretariat for Women, Eleonora Menicucci, in which she says that her 1 year old daughter was tortured during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985)  in 1972, in front of her.

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Cuban bloggers have been making their feelings known about the impending papal visit to Cuba, their main concern being that the Vatican is putting its stamp of approval on the Castro regime despite regular reports of human rights violations coming out of the island.

In light of new reports of state-sanctioned actions against members of Las Damas de Blanco Last weekend, diaspora blogger Uncommon Sense suggested that:

Pope Benedict XVI should postpone his planned visit in late March to Cuba. The visit was part of a quid pro quo between the regime and the church, but continued repression of women trying to go to Mass should not have been part of the deal.

The blogger also posted a link to an e-Petition soliciting signatures from people who agreed with the postponement of the pontiff's visit “until human rights conditions improve in Cuba”.

Pedazos de la Isla echoed this concern, as he reported on “another Sunday of repression”:

Just weeks before Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba in March, another Sunday on the island- February 5th 2012- was marked by an excessive level of violence on behalf of the dictatorship against the peaceful Resistance, for simply trying to attend church.

In the city of Holguin, 5 Ladies in White were brutally arrested around 9 in the morning as they tried to reach the Jesus Christ Redeemer of Men Church.

The post went on to detail the kind of violence some of the women testified about:

In Guantanamo, 11 Ladies in White were able to make it to church, despite a constant vigilance. Another 20 Ladies in White assisted mass in the Santuary of El Cobre in Santiago de Cuba. 16 women were arrested as they tried to get to that mass, however, according to the Twitter account of Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia (@jdanielferrer). Among those arrested, according to his Twitter, were Oria Casanova who was “violently arrested, dragged, and beaten by 4 oppressive agents” and Liudmilla Cedeno who was victim of “sexual harassment in the cell where she was being held”. Ferrer Garcia denounced, also through his Twitter, “that is how the henchmen who sustain the Castro brothers are- they beat, sexually assault, and harass defensless women in Cuba”.

The blogger ended by saying:

In Cuba, the Ladies in White and other pro-democracy activists will continue marching, whether Pope Benedict publicly speaks out for them or not.

Speaking out for the Ladies in White is one issue, speaking with them is another. Capitol Hill Cubans reported that:

Last week, the Vatican confirmed meetings with Cuban dictators Raul and Fidel Castro during Pope Benedict XVI's March visit to the island.

Meanwhile, Cuba's courageous Ladies in White have been told to stand idly by as the Pope's agenda is “very heavy” (apparently from meeting with dictators).

How has the Castro regime received this news?

With impunity, of course.

babalu also commented:

Apparently, the Vatican has set aside time during the Pope's visit to Cuba in late March to have the pontiff meet with dictators Fidel and Raul Castro. However, they are not sure if the Pope will have time to meet with the Ladies in White, devout Catholics who are suffering repression, intimidation, beatings, humiliating sexual assaults, and death at the hands of the Castro dictatorship for trying to attend mass every Sunday.

Is it me, or do the Vatican's priorities appear to be backwards?

Iván García, meanwhile, wrote a thoughtful post on “the flirtations of Castro with the Vatican”:

It has been a formidable spin. Pure political juggling. A future strategy.

After a stormy and hostile period against the priests, Catholics and of other religions, where not a few went to jail or were imprisoned in labor camps, Fidel Castro changed his policy of confrontation. It was because of the rise to power by popular and democratic vote of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1971, that Castro was restated his strategy of gunfire toward the Vatican.

Latin America was and is the region with the greatest number of Catholics worldwide. The bearded commander realized at once that any revolution, whether through elections or armed uprising, should begin by acknowledging the role played by priests, bishops and cardinals in a new proposal for social change and advocacy of the always excluded in the hemisphere.

And he began to design a new ideological castling. The Fourth Congress of the Communist Party in 1991, he accepted as members believers of any denomination.

He realized that to subvert, ideas were more important than bullets. And if these ideas were proclaimed from the pulpit…so much the better.

The post continued recounting the chain of events that will culminate in next month's papal visit:

After Castro was on the threshold of death in 2006, his brother, General Raul Castro, took the reins of power and further paved the way to Rome.

When the a political prisoner Orlando Zapata died on February 23, 2010, as a result of a prolonged hunger strike, and the civilized world launched a major campaign against the regime in Havana, due to excessive repression against opponents and the Ladies in White, Castro II knew immediately who to call.

And he called Cardinal Jaime Ortega…The Cardinal would become key political chess piece for the Castro brothers. He was the partner par excellence between government, the militant Ladies in White and the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. The talks allowed the release of dissidents who had remained behind bars since the crackdown of March 2003. Someday we will know if Ortega is driven by the hope that the situation in Cuba will lead to a democracy, or other pressures have led him to play a role that some exiled opponents see as cowardly.

What intrigues local observers is whether the conspiracy with the Cuban Catholic Church and the Vatican could lead to a democratic state of law. Or is just a ploy to gain time and give a wider social space to Catholicism in education and health, sectors facing hardships due to the widespread economic crisis in the nation.

Church and state, at least from the Cuban blogosphere's perspective, seem to be irrevocably intertwined.

The thumbnail image used in this post is by Catholic Church (England and Wales), used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit Catholic Church (England and Wales)'s flickr photostream.

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[Nairobi Star] MORE women in Turkana county give birth at home compared tothose who deliver in hospitals, area medical officer Joseph Epem hassaid. Epem attributed this to high illiteracy level, hugegeographical area of the county and poverty. Epem said the nearest medicalfacility is over 50km away from where people reside. "Turkana county is 77,000 km and health facilities are scarce bearing in mind that most of the roads are impassable,"Epem said.

Late last week, a bill that would enable state-funded private adoption agencies in Virginia to refuse placements on the basis of their religious or moral beliefs, including banning placements with same-sex couples passed the state House of Delegates by a vote of 71 to 28. The Virginia Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee also endorse the bill, and it is likely to appear on the state Senate floor for a vote this week. Republican Governor Bob McDonnell indicated that he would sign the bill, if it is passed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Leslie Cooper, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), stated, “It’s a license for child welfare agencies to make bad decisions based on their own religious beliefs rather than the child’s needs.”

Senator Mark Herring (D-Loudoun) criticized the bill on the grounds that the private agencies contract with the state government and thus as recipients of state funding, should not be permitted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) added, “I will listen to the arguments and try to understand what the rationale behind it is…but I’m not include to support discrimination or use of tax dollars to support discrimination.” If the bill becomes law, Virginia would be the second state, following North Dakota, to allow private agencies to refuse placements on the basis sexual orientation.

Washington Post 2/7/12; Associated Press 2/4/12

Yesterday Rick Santorum won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses, as well as a nonbinding Missouri primary. All three races are considered largely symbolic given that no delegates were determined for the states last night. These are the first victories for Santorum since the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

Rick Santorum has been under fire for his statements opposing contraception. He has indicated that he is opposed not only to abortion but wants to repeal Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and allow states to ban birth control access. Moreover, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have signed an extreme anti- reproductive rights and health pledge indicating that they support state constitutional personhood amendments, which would give constitutional rights to a fertilized egg. The personhood amendments could also ban emergency contraception, birth control pills, and IUDs the amendment as well as all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. It could even eliminate medical choices for women like some cancer treatments, and in vitro fertilization.

Although Romney did not sign the Personhood USA pledge, he has indicated in an interview that he also supports “life” from the moment of conception.

Politico 2/8/12; Washington Post 2/8/12; New York Times 2/7/12

[Monitor] "When a whistle sounds it may be normal to any other person or may be a signal to a thing or two, but for me, the stark memories of the day I faced the knife resurface," says Phyllis Cherop, a woman who underwent Female Genital Mutilation in 1986.

[Nation] New York - Kenya has achieved the greatest rate of reduction in female genital mutilation among 15 black African countries, the United Nations Population Fund has announced.

[New Vision] The First Lady of Rwanda, Janet Kagame has given $10,000 (about sh23.2m) towards the promotion of culture between Uganda and Rwanda.

[Leadership] The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is convincing banks' top hierarchy to create a certain percentage management and board positions for women in the country.

[Daily Observer] Gamcotrap on Monday joined the rest of the World to celebrate the Universal Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), with a march-past from the West Field Junction to the KMC Multi-Purpose Centre along Jimpex Road in Kanifing. The theme for this year's celebration is, "From Malabo to New York; Support the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly banning FGM Worldwide".

[Leadership] The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it is establishing a special fund that will provide loans to women by the end of the 2012.

[Daily Trust] Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development Hajiya Zainab Maina has said she would soon be meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria to seek his intervention on enabling women get waivers from commercial banks on their credit facilities.

[Nairobi Star] National women's volleyball team coach Gideon Chenje has blamed the adverse weather conditions and a hostile host crowd for the team's failure to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics. Chenje said despite putting on spirited fight against the host team Algeria, Kenya could not match up to the efforts put up by their opponents, who grabbed the solitary Africa ticket to the London Games without losing a match.

[Times of Zambia] Lack of surveillance in childrens' lives has caused some parents to lose touch with reality concerning their welfare.