The Daily Telegraph Thursday 1 August 2019 *** 15Hamza bin Laden is dead, claim
intelligence reports sent to US
By Nick Allen in WashingtonTHE United States has received intelli-
gence that Hamza bin Laden, the son
and possible successor of the late
al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is
dead, according to reports.
There were no details of how, or
where, the reported death occurred, or
whether the US had itself confirmed
the information, NBC News reported.
Asked whether Hamza was dead,
President Donald Trump repeated: “I
don’t want to comment on it. I don’t
want to comment on that.”
Three US officials confirmed the in-
telligence had been obtained, but gave
no details of whether the US was in-
volved in Hamza’s death, NBC said.
Five months ago, the US state
department announced a $1 million
(£823,000) reward for information on
his location, and described Hamza as
an “emerging al-Qaeda leader”.
In a statement at the time, US offi-
cials added: “He has released audio andvideo messages on the internet, calling
on his followers to launch attacks
against the US and its Western allies,
and he has threatened attacks against
the US in revenge for the May 2011 kill-
ing of his father by US military forces.”
The senior bin Laden was shot dead
by US Navy Seals in a raid on his com-
pound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Hamza
was not discovered at the compound.Hamza, who is aged about 30, spent
his early childhood with his parents in
Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Afghanistan.
He is believed to have been the 15th of
Osama’s approximately 20 children.
Following the Sept 11 2001 terror
attacks he was sent to Iran.
After his father’s death he became
known as the “Crown Prince of Jihad”,
calling for jihadists to unite and for the
overthrow of the Saudi royal family.
In one of the recordings released
after his father’s death, Hamza said:
“If you think that the crime you
perpetrated in Abbottabad has gone by
with no reckoning, you are wrong.”
He reportedly married the daughter
of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the
Sept 11 hijackers. And Ayman al-Zawa-
hiri, his father’s successor as leader of
al-Qaeda, described him as a “lion”.
Al-Qaeda was believed to be hoping
to use his name as a propaganda tool as
it sought a resurgence in the wake of
the destruction of the caliphate of Is-
lamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).Hamza bin Laden was described as a ‘lion’Sicily ‘migrants’ to leave
after new homes agreedItaly says five nations have agreed to
take some rescued “migrants” waiting
on an Italian coast guard ship and the
others will be hosted in properties of
Italian bishops.
The passengers were picked up
during two Mediterranean rescue
missions last week and put aboard the
coast guard vessel, which has been
docked off Sicily for days.
Interior minister Matteo Salvini said
yesterday that he would allow the 116
people to disembark now that
Germany, Portugal, France,
Luxembourg and Ireland had agreed
to take most of them.WORLD BULLETIN
Malaysia gets new king
after surprise abdicationMalaysia has installed a new British-
educated king after the shock
abdication of the former monarch to
marry a former Russian beauty queen.
Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin of
Pahang, 60, who was educated at
Sandhurst and Oxford University, was
crowned as the 16th Malaysian king on
Tuesday. Malaysia is the only country
in the world with an elected monarch.
Sultan Abdullah acceded the throne
after Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan,
49, his predecessor, stepped down
just two years into his term after
marrying Oksana Voyevodina, 27,
a former Miss Moscow.South Korea says North
has fired more missilesSouth Korea’s military said North
Korea conducted its second weapons
test in less than a week yesterday,
firing two short-range ballistic missiles
off its east coast in a move observers
said could be aimed at boosting
pressure on the US as the rivals
struggle to set up fresh nuclear talks.
South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff
said in a statement that the missiles
were launched from the city of
Wonsan. It said both missiles were
believed to have flown about 250km
(155 miles). The test would be yet
another North Korean violation of UN
Security Council resolutions.Dreams come true: the Ugandan women on the
new front line in war against the HIV epidemic
B
right and proper in a
vivid print dress, Fauza
has been offered the only
lucky break she has ever
had – and seems
determined to make
the most of it.
She is with 27 others, all girls and
young women, sitting on plastic chairs
in a scruffy trading post in Jinja, a
poor, rural district just a few hours
drive from Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
These young women occupy the
new front line of the war on HIV in
Uganda and much of sub-Saharan
Africa – an epidemic in which
women aged 15 to 24 are up to 14 times
more likely to be infected by the virus
than men.
It’s hard to find the words to
describe them. Prostitutes, sex
workers, women engaged in
transactional sex – all could be used,
but seem misleading. The
overwhelming impression is of a
group of teens, a school netball team
perhaps.
Of the 28 girls and young women, 19
have children and nearly all are having
sex with multiple strangers a day.
Many are sent out to work by their
parents when they are in their early
teens. Seven or eight, like Fauza, are
living with HIV or other serious
sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
Another has a displaced uterus and
deep scars where she was attacked.
The thing they say they fear most is
not HIV, but to be murdered by one of
the long-distance truckers who pick
them up. Six girls from the area have
been killed or gone missing since
Christmas, some of whose bodies were
dumped in the surrounding sugar
cane fields.
Fauza says the risks they take is a
matter of survival. Uganda has no
social security net. “If you don’t have
money, or family who can support,
you don’t eat,” she says.
In places like Jinja, that leaves just
two options. They can either hawk soft
drinks, boiled eggs or charcoal,
earning up to 1,000 Ugandan shillings
a day (22p). Or they can sell themselves
at 5,000 shillings (£1.09) a time,
earning around 30,000 shillings
(£6.50) a day.
“It sounds like a lot, but
it’s not all yours,” says
Lazia. “You have to pay
rent for the place you go,
and rent for the place
you stand [on the road],
so all the money is
not yours, not even
half of it.”
Despite a major
decline in the
number of new
HIV infections
globally, the
HIV epidemic
among women
between 15 and
24 in severalWorld news
Dispatch
By Paul Nuki GLOBAL HEALTH
SECURITY EDITOR in Kampalasub-Saharan African countries
remains uncontrolled.
Two thirds of all new infections
across the region occur in young
women and girls – an estimated
280,000 new infections annually. In
Uganda, nearly 9 per cent of women
live with HIV, compared with about
4 per cent of men.
Reasons for the disparity
lie in what one study
refers to as a “perfect
storm” of gender
inequality, poverty, and
powerlessness.
The result is that
transactional
sex – from
prostitution to a
more survivable
polyamory – is
endemic in
Uganda, as in
much of the
developing world.
Lazia says she’s 19- however, she looks
no older than 15.
Like many of the
other girls, her
father died when
she was a child
and she now
works to feed herself and her mother.
Her friend Zabia has a similar story.
“I started when I was 13. My friends
told me what to do. I had sex with six
men on the first day. I was a virgin, but
I thought I would make enough
money to go back to school. I wanted
to be a doctor.”
Bridget Ndagaano, a medical social
worker who specialises in HIV
prevention, points to Kampala’s
university campuses as a case in point.
“The girls all have ‘blessers’ – older
men who look after them in return for
sex. You might have one for shoes, one
for the hair salon, one for [mobile]
airtime ... at the universities the
blessers are an epidemic.
“These girls know they need to get
educated to get on – and that’s right- but the risks they take are huge.”
But there is a glimmer of hope in
Dreams. This is the project, or a UK
Aid-backed version of it, that Fauza
and her friends have been recruited to.
It is one of the most ambitious
behavioural change programmes
being tested anywhere in the world
and it epitomises the “public health”
approach to seemingly intractable
social problems like drug abuse or
knife crime.
Dreams stands for Determined,
Resilient, Empowered, Aids-free,
Mentored and Safe women, and its
goal is to reduce new HIV infections
among adolescent girls and young
women in 15 countries across Africa
and the Pacific, including Uganda.
It is the brainchild of the US
President’s Emergency Plan for Aids
Relief (Pepfar) and targets the
“structural drivers” that increase girls’
HIV risk.
In Mityana district, 23-year-old
Josephine is about to graduate from
Dreams.
Her story is typical: she comes from
a village, one of eight children. Her
mum didn’t have enough money to gether through secondary school. Then a
teacher gave her a proposition: “He
said if I slept with him I could stay. I
slept with him for four years.”
After finishing school she moved to
Kampala where she fell into
prostitution. By 17 she was pregnant.
“I moved back home to live with an
old boyfriend. I had two more
children, but we started to argue and
he got violent. A friend told me about
Dreams,” she says.
Josephine now has a contraceptive
implant; has undergone training on
conflict resolution and violence; and is
making a living as a hairdresser,
charging between 10,000 and 30,
shillings [£2 to £6] a client.
“My life has changed,” she says.
“I’ve brought all the girls I worked in
Kampala with here and others, more
than 20.”
More than three million women
have been recruited to Dreams to date,
and millions more will enter the
scheme and others like it over the next
few years.
Early data suggest that the schemes
are working. HIV diagnoses among
adolescent girls and young women
have declined by between 25 and 40
per cent in two thirds of Dreams
intervention districts since the scheme
started in 2015.
Prof Charlotte Watts, chief
scientific adviser at the UK
Department for International
Development (Dfid), was involved with
several of the trials that Dreams
references in its evidence base.
She says the behavioural issues that
seem most intractable – such as sexual
and domestic violence – can be
resolved by well-designed, but
relatively simple educational and
empowerment programmes.
“If you empower women – tell them
their rights, build their confidence,
give them information, link them with
others – it can make a huge
difference,’’ she says.
One element of the “layered”
intervention in the Dreams
programme that Prof Watts thinks is
crucial is the group dynamic.
“When you get people in the
same situation together, so they can
share and support each other, that
can be very powerful, very special,”
she says.
And that is perhaps the most
moving thing you feel when talking to
Fauza, Josephine and the other women
in Uganda.
“We hope to leave this work,” says
Fauza, speaking for the group. “We
risk our lives in this business.
“Together we are much stronger
than our number.”JASON FLORIO FOR THE TELEGRAPHThe issue of sex
workers is not
restricted to
Uganda’s rural
districts and is also
rife in the capital
Kampala, above,
Fauza, left, is one of
more than three
million women
recruited worldwide
to Dreams in an
effort to combat
HIV by tackling such
related social
problems‘We hope to
leave this
work. We
risk ourlives in this
business.
Together weare much
strongerthan our
number’ed eggs or charcoal,
o 1,000 Ugandan shillings
Or they can sell themselves
lings(£1.09) a time,
und 30,000 shillings
y.
s like a lot, but
urs,”says
have to pay
placeyou go,
the place
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oney is
ot evenmajor
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ew
nsic
en
and
lReasons for the
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storm” of ge
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The resul
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more s
polyam
endemi
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Like m
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