Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
Quadriplegic in an age of austerity
Every time I write a story on European countries cutting public spending, I feel a frisson of panic. I can’t help but fear my health, lifestyle and liberty could be a casualty of the “age of austerity”.
On assignment covering the Sri Lankan civil war for Reuters four years ago, I broke my neck in a minibus smash. It left me quadriplegic, almost entirely paralysed from the shoulders down and totally dependent on 24 hour care. I was 25.
Nine months later, in a wheelchair, using voice recognition software and supported by government-funded personal assistants, I got back to work in Reuters London headquarters the day after leaving hospital. Now political risk correspondent for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, I write about the interplay of politics and markets. For the past year and a half, much of that has been the drive to cut government spending as Europe rebalances its books.
That hasn’t done my personal mental health any good at all. I even had my doctor tweak my medication to make sure worry didn’t produce a gastric ulcer.
Britain’s new coalition government intends to cut more than many countries, some 25 percent over five years. Some details will emerge in an Oct. 20 spending review, but I may have to wait until the end of the financial year for details on how that will affect my care and that of others.
In many respects, I have already been very lucky. Stringent UK employment law meant it was hard to pension me off just because of my disability. Improvements in voice recognition software meant I could still write at roughly the same speed as before – crucial to continuing work as a newswire journalist.
Most important of all, decades of growth in Britain’s social welfare system meant that – after a substantial struggle – enough state funding was available to look after me in my own home.
Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know
The article by Jean MacKenzie originally appeared in GlobalPost. This is part of a special series by GlobalPost called Life, Death and The Taliban. Click here for a related article Funding the Pakistani Taliban.
KABUL — It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.
Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.
“Everyone knows this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking privately.
It is almost impossible to determine how much the insurgents are spending, making it difficult to pinpoint the sources of the funds.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, former Taliban minister to Pakistan, was perhaps more than a bit disingenuous when he told GlobalPost that the militants were operating mostly on air.
“The Taliban does not have many expenses,” he said, smiling slightly. “They are barefoot and hungry, with no roof over their heads and a stone for their pillow.” As for weapons, he just shrugged. “Afghanistan is full of guns,” he said. “We have enough guns for years.”
how can a third world country like afghanistan be controlled by illitrate, below poverty, talaban rebels and fight a super power and all it’s allies for so long???? so what is our “free press” really telling us idiots???? yeah i figure it’s just a front for more theft of tax payers money and lives. the theives got to say they’re spending it legit on something. might as well give the people over there in the middle east a cut for helping them out. be interesting if the press would do there jobs and report on who these theives really are!!!!
The ethical issue (I consider it a single issue) you raise concerns the notion that people must justify their existence – their lives? – by the work they do. The commandment seems to be “Thou shalt toil for bread, or be consigned to (hell? death? a deserved suffering?)” But in the inevitable post capitalist world, however many decades or even centuries it may take to come about, “work” will be differently assessed and measured. So, give sperm to your favorite sperm bank, and have faith that your descendants may well live a more cared for, and intrinsically rewarding, life.