Holmes was later asked by reporters to clarify his estimate. He said he was "not trying to give an exact figure" and described 300,000 as a "reasonable extrapolation" from the 2006 estimate for the current total number of people who have died in Darfur of disease, hunger or in combat.
Holmes said the original 200,000 figure was based on a 2-year-old study by the World Health Organization. He said there were no plans now for a new scientific study to determine the precise number of deaths in Darfur caused by the conflict.
Asked if the figure could be even higher than 300,000, Holmes said: "I'm trying to be reasonable, conservative."
This Zulu song was later changed in to English with all of the usual horror stories related to the always slimy music recording industry. This original version has a different sound than The Tokens version and was a massive hit in South Africa well before it hit the UK and America.
The normal announcement that Robert Mugabe has won yet another election generally occurs about one hour after the polls are closed but here we are a week later and nothing but silence. Earlier in the week South Africa called for a unity government though it wasn't clear why the opposition would want to accept such an offer considering they won in a route.
There is simply no way Mugabe will walk away from power without a fight and the African Union is obviously an unbiased observer, with one AU leader even calling Mugabe "a patriot." If starving a country and ruining the former bread basket of Africa is how the AU defines "a patriot" then they are not up to the task. Without impartial international support, it's going to be nearly impossible for the people of Zimbabwe to see the government that they just elected.
A few years ago while driving around southern Africa, we were looking for music to play in the car since so many places are well beyond radio range and someone in South Africa suggested Mafikizolo who were quite popular at the time. For me, listening to this music reminds me of the wonderful people throughout that part of the world and the stunning countryside. Sadly, one member of the trio became a victim of the crime that many hear about around the world. That said, in our six months (and tens of thousands of kilometers of driving) never once did we experience any problems, anywhere. If you like this song, check out the others including Ndihamba Nawe.
Did they think the Hamburglar was there or something? Why is George Bush trying to divert America's attention from his scandalous failures at home? Isn't that how their tired old story went during the Clinton years? Either way, the hyped attack was yet another flop.
The attack was the fourth known strike by the US inside Somalia since it backed Ethiopia's invasion of the country in December 2006. All have been aimed at men Washington believes to be responsible for terrorist attacks in East Africa. None has been successful.
If you believe science, that is. The DNA study is discovering (or confirming) so many interesting pieces of information. To that end, Brazilian singer/songwriter Chico César and Mama Africa. One of my favorites.
Put aside his false statements (OK, lies) that the abstinence programs work and put aside his strange comment about not wanting to give money to people who steal from the people (cough, Iraq, cough Halliburton, cough) and you still have an amazing quote from Bush. He has to be the center of attention and it must be driving him mad that he's become a complete has-been and is irrelevant.
At the news conference, both leaders dodged a question about the presidential race in the United States and the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., whose father was Kenyan.
Bush, momentarily taken aback by a question about the excitement surrounding Obama's candidacy, said: "Seems like there was a lot of excitement for me."
Heavens no, not by "democratic" governments. (Where would they outsource cheap labor?) On the heels of the pathetic decision by the British Olympic association to force athletes to not say anything that might be remotely political while in China, Steven Spielberg pulled out of the Beijing Olympics as an adviser and now others are joining the protest. A group of eight Nobel laureates including Desmond Tutu are asking China to alter its position on Darfur. (Tutu is really an amazing person who continues to speak out again obvious wrongs, whether it's bad policy on AIDS, Zimbabwe, anti-gay policies in the church and now this. We need more people like him.)
The Nobel laureates state that China "has a special role to play in ensuring that its actions this year are commensurate with the Olympic ideals of peace and international co-operation... As the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games approach, we will continue to call on the Chinese government for action. We are aware of the tremendous potential for China to help bring an end to the conflict in Darfur".
China buys about two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and sells weapons to Khartoum, many of which find their way to a conflict in Darfur which has been described by the US as "genocidal".
A total of 200,000 people are believed to have died in the region over the past five years, mostly black Africans at the hands of Arab militias alleged to operate with government backing.
This past week was another violent week in Kenya, with opposition political leaders murdered and scores of violent attacks. I still can't believe any of this is happening in Kenya, of all countries.
"The AU should bring in peacekeepers because the violence in Kenya is appalling," Raila Odinga told The Associated Press with his wife at his side at his family home in Bondo, a village in western Kenya.
Western Kenya has been at the center of fighting that has killed more than 800 people and engulfed the country since the Dec. 27 election, which returned President Mwai Kibaki to power after a tally that foreign and local observers say was rigged. The violence has often degenerated into ethnic clashes over decades-old grudges about land and resources, with much of the anger — and attacks — aimed at Kikuyu, who are resented for their long domination of politics and the economy.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I strongly believe in giving a bigger megaphone to those who deserve it but perhaps aren't yet very well known, especially because that's the kind of perspective that allowed me to come on board here in the first place. So I'm making an effort to highlight and recommend emerging voices every few weeks or so, mostly on foreign policy but sometimes other topics as well. The first was Matt Duss, and today I'd like to introduce y'all to Alex Thurston, another young foreign policy observer whose insights and expertise make his writing essential reading.
Alex is currently a student in the Master's program of Arab Studies at Georgetown, and studied religion as an undergrad at Northwestern. Unlike many pundits, he has actually lived abroad, spending much of 2006 and 2007 in Senegal as part of the Fulbright exchange program, studying Muslim youth movements. His understanding of the Middle East and Africa is comprehensive, and he's one of a growing group that understand internationalism *and* politics -- an intersection that was less necessary before the entire foreign policy apparatus was politicized but is absolutely vital now.
His recent post on continued escalation of tensions in Pakistan rightly warns against any rash moves by the US; moving east, his excellent analysis of the latest in Darfur helps keep focus on a still-overlooked tragedy. So you know the drill: Add The Seminal to your RSS feed or your daily reading list, and know that when you read Thurston, you're reading a progressive who knows his stuff and can be trusted. It's important.
The December election was a blowout, with the opposition party somehow being blocked out with nothing more than promises of power sharing, just as on previous occasions. The US government has promoted reconciliation and asked both parties to work it out though this again runs contrary to the big talk about democracy. Power-sharing has never gone beyond talk and the US and EU have not taken any action to further the promises. Probably they just assumed that Kenya would remain peaceful without following rumblings on the ground. Nothing excuses the horrible acts that have been reported from Kenya though this poll adds more context to the story.
For years Kenya has been a peaceful, functional country but the recent events are pushing the country to the edge. The US and EU need to step up political intervention now before a bad situation becomes worse. Let's quit talking about democracy and do something real and constructive to promote democracy.
Current South African president Mbeki is finishing his second (and final) term as president though he hoped to maintain control of the ruling ANC. Controlling the primary political party essentially means controlling the government in South Africa. Yesterday the ANC party members voted for the leadership role yesterday and Mbeki lost badly to Jacob Zuma. In recent years Zuma has faced trial for rape (he was acquitted) and has also faced charges of corruption. The corruption charges have not yet been put to rest and could come back to end his career.
Outside of South Africa, Mbeki is best known for his bizarre theories on HIV/AIDS. Internally, Mbeki was viewed as an unpleasant, technocrat who never managed to connect with the people. Years after apartheid, the problem of poverty is still very present though it is hard to deny the growth of the black middle and upper class. The problem has been the limits of that growth and the continuing misery of millions.
(More after the jump on Zuma and changes for South Africa.) Zuma has his own strange beliefs on the subject of HIV/AIDS (just take a shower after sex) but he has been able to connect with the people around the country. Whether Zuma has the ability to grow the middle class, it's hard to say.
I spent half a year traveling around South Africa a few years ago and visited numerous "townships" across the country. What jumped out to me was that there were so many hard working people who lived in such poverty. We befriended a young South African who invited us to his house and meet the family in one particular township. His mother worked in a posh hotel, traveling by bus every day and working long hours, though she still had very little to show for her efforts.
The house was a very basic square (as you see in most townships) that did not include any modern conveniences in the kitchen and was sparsely filled. It was amazing to see such a hard working family have so little. It's not that I don't understand the local economics in such places, but in South Africa you constantly stumble upon such great discrepancies between rich and poor. Change can't happen overnight but the ANC has been in power since 1994 and it's not unreasonable to expect a little more.
Mbeki can be credited with maintaining a good economy and keeping foreign investment but times have changed and people want more. Hard working people have every right to expect that their lot in life improve if they put their nose to the grindstone. If anything, this is a healthy development that more people want to join the middle class.
The challenge in the future will be whether Zuma can maintain economic growth while expanding the middle class. The biggest fear among some is the possibility of expanding the old boy network, with all of the favors-to-friends that too often dominates politics. Of course, Zuma also needs to get beyond his existing corruption problems.
A very good move in the right direction by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. There is plenty of hard work and diplomacy ahead but even getting to this stage required an enormous effort, starting back during the tenure of Kofi Annan. It would be nice to see China be more constructive in situations such as this but then again, the US government is often lacking as well with friendly countries who offer rich natural resources. Expanding power internationally cuts both ways, which China will discover, though they are already highly unpopular with the population in countries such as Zimbabwe where they continue to prop up a tumbling dictatorship.
The official Herald newspaper reported that Mugabe told a meeting of local council members that they should put more pressure on government ministers to improve services.
"Where money for projects has not been found, we will print it," Mugabe was quoted as saying.
The printing of money is generally regarded as a recipe for inflation -- which is officially at 4,500 percent in Zimbabwe, though private economists estimate it to be at least twice that high. The government last month ordered sweeping price cuts of about 50 percent, accusing store owners and businesses of fueling the inflation.
Government lawyers filed a new $7 billion civil lawsuit Friday against Pfizer Inc., adding a more serious fraud charge to their allegations that the U.S. drug maker did not properly obtain consent from families while testing an experimental drug on their children.
The government has accused Pfizer of taking advantage of a 1996 meningitis epidemic to test an experimental drug without authorization or the full understanding of the families involved — allegedly contributing to the deaths of some of the children and sickening others. Pfizer denies wrongdoing.
A few years ago it was Chirac and France who complained that the summit was critical and including Mugabe, the man who has led Zimbabwe from the breadbasket of Africa to a starving nation. As someone who has much less faith in grand summits and the dubious results, I'm offended at the decision to again cast aside the law and allow an exception, but unfortunately some EU powers are obsessed with being locked out of the next financial boom in Africa that will profit a few dozen locals, perhaps, and enrich some global corporate power.
Whether Ghana or the African Union or anyone else publicly demands Mugabe is allowed to participate, that is their problem and not the EU's problem. Why bother to even have a travel ban for the likes of Mugabe if it's going to be pushed aside every time a summit is announced? Creating an exception for a man who has turned the state against his own people with brutal and sometimes deadly results will only reward this kind of behavior.
Sure, that's important but so are condoms, medicine, nurses and doctors which are lagging from her husbands moralistic plan for addressing the problem. If she wants to talk about vegetables and good nutrition, then perhaps she could explain how the hell people are supposed to work to either buy treatment or grow crops to survive when they are dying. I give Bush credit for promoting a lot more money to Africa than most countries but diverting over a billion dollars for moralizing is a senseless waste of money.
If over time the GOP wants to moralize, and they always love to moralize about sex, go ahead with church funds and private donations, but the problem today is trying to keep pace with the people who are dying who struggle to find anything that even remotely seems like medical care for most of us. Maybe the First Lady can spend some quality time with dying parents and orphaned children and report back how relevant veggies and well rounded meals are when people can't even find a doctor, let along a nurse, let alone medicine or a parent. It's great to see her raising the profile of the issues but I'm fed up with responding to real problems with Southern Baptist moralizing, which is a big part of Bush's program.
Ugh. It's great that world leaders get together for functions like the G8 but are they ever going to move beyond these big statements that add up to nothing? At this point, why bother if this is the best they can do? The over-hyped and under-delivered routine is old. Bono is 100% spot on:
But the declaration set out no specific timetable, saying the money would flow "over the coming years." Neither did it break down individual countries' contributions or spell out how much of the sum had been previously promised.
"I am exasperated," Irish rock star and anti-poverty campaigner Bono told Reuters. "I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation. It is deliberately misleading."
Considering the bold headline regarding climate change, caution is necessary but let's see if the details are as positive sounding as the headline, but this could be a very good step forward.
Bush and the GOP want to spend over one billion dollars of taxpayer dollars in Africa preaching abstinence, often using the questionable Uganda ABC program as an example. Theory is fine when having a discussion, but when millions of people are dying, practical real-world solutions are needed. In the real world, getting serious about prevention needs to addressed. This means promoting the use of condoms and safe sex, not preaching about supposed morals.
If current trends persist, sub-Saharan Africa, already reeling under the burden of nearly 25 million infected people and in the midst of a population boom, will face 36 million additional new infections by 2015, according to a report to be released this June by the Global H.I.V. Prevention Working Group. Treatment clinics will confront an ever-growing clientele and countless millions will die, said the panel of experts, which was convened by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“It is like running on a treadmill,” said Salim S. Abdool Karim, who directs the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa. “The faster you run, the more you stay in place.”
The panel blamed the lack of an intensive prevention effort for the continuing high rate of new infections. To some extent, the panel said, prevention has taken a back seat to treatment in the last several years. Developing nations are spending progressively less on prevention programs, the report said. Studies show donors are also gravitating toward financing treatment over prevention.
“Despite their promise, H.I.V. prevention efforts have received short shrift in the global H.I.V. response,” the report says.
That is partly because treatment programs produce tangible, dramatic evidence of money well spent, while an averted infection is almost impossible to show, even though prevention is more cost-effective in the long run, the panel’s experts say.
Congress needs to update the Bush plan for Africa and add a serious dose of reality to help make it as effective as possible. The religious right experiment has failed so move on.
