–‘Ebola is real’ he said

GENERAL Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee yesterday said the spread of the deadly Ebola Disease is real, and that all efforts must be made by the international community to contain and possibly eliminate this threat to the human race. 

Speaking at the Party’s weekly press briefing at Freedom House, he said the PPP has noted with alarm the spread of the disease, and its threat to wiping out countless numbers of people, especially on the African continent.
“In this regard,” he told reporters, “we welcome the extension of help by the Cuban Government to fight this scourge. The PPP is convinced that, like the HIV virus, this disease can be controlled, provided the right amount of financial and other resources are made available in a timely manner by the relevant bodies. The PPP is confident that given the will and commitment by the industrialised states, the resources can be found.”
The Party is also calling on the powers-that-be to immediately make the requisite resources available to combat this dreaded disease.
“The PPP takes this opportunity to renew the call by former president, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, for the introduction of a New Global Human Order in which people are placed ahead of profits,” he said, adding:
“It is this drive for profits by the military industrial complex that is responsible for so much tension and conflicts in the world. The resources that are spent on war if diverted to human development could go a far way in terms of the reduction and eventual elimination of poverty and want in the world at large.”
He continued that it is a collective shame on humanity that so many millions of people die each year for want of food and water, not to mention the millions of children who are unable to go to school due to extreme poverty. Something must be fundamentally and structurally wrong, he said, when nearly a third of the global population is forced to live on US$1 each day.
The income gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider with each passing day, he observed, despite the advances in science and technology. The party calls on the relevant international agencies to put in place the necessary mechanisms to give effect to the new global human order which was adopted by the United Nations.
“The need to end the gap between the rich and the poor, and the digital divide is an imperative that cannot be further delayed. Indeed, there is no reason in today’s highly sophisticated technologically advanced world for any information in communication gap between rich and poor countries.
“We live today in what is considered the information age and it is not only desirable but absolutely necessary for everyone especially in the developing world to be able to obtain and process information and knowledge failing which they run the risk of being pushed further into the back water of individual and national development,” Rohee said.
The Party is calling on the industrialised countries to take “concrete and measurable” steps to allow for technological transfer and a more equitable and just information and communication order.
“In this regard, the Party commends the current PPP/C administration for having the vision to implement the ‘One Laptop per Family’ programme targeting, in particular, the poor and vulnerable which is aimed at the local level in bridging the digital divide,” Rohee said.

(By Telesha Ramnarine)