Bono the Jerk

At the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference Bono displayed behaviors that could be considered not only rude but elitist and possibly even racist, depending on how you look at it. But the second, more interesting theme--echoed by every speaker--is that traditional aid and charity, whether distributed by nation-states or nongovernmental bodies, have failed. Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist and social ...

Price Caps Crippling Zimbabwe Economy

Zimbabwe's already shaky economy is going into a tailspin after Robert Mugabe ordered price caps. Robert G. Mugabe has ruled over this battered nation, his every wish endorsed by Parliament and enforced by the police and soldiers, for more than 27 years. It appears, however, that not even an unchallenged autocrat can repeal the laws of supply and demand. One month ...

Another U.N. Peacekeeper Rape Scandal

The U.N. has suffered yet another rape scandal, this time involving Moroccan soldiers and Ivory Coast girls. "It means they don't participate in our operations," said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI). "Those who are found guilty will be sent back home." The world body said the measure was in addition to a decision to confine ...

Africa AIDS Ignorance

Dan Drezner and Preeti Aroon decry the woeful state of understanding of AIDS in Africa. Among the more astonishing examples is the president of Gambia's claim to be able to personally cure the disease (along with asthma and diabetes) and the South African vice president -- the former head of the country's AIDS program, no less -- telling his ...

Failed States Index 2007

Foreign Policy has published the latest edition of The Failed States Index 2007. It is not a cause for celebration: Few encouraging signs emerged in 2006 to suggest the world is on a path to greater peace and stability. The year began with violent protests that erupted from Indonesia to Nigeria over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet ...

Guerrillas Derail Darfur Support Mission

The UN peacekeepers in Darfur are having many of the same difficulties currently being encountered by Coalition forces in Iraq. Christian Science Monitor staff writer Scott Baldauf explains: Deteriorating security conditions in Darfur – a vast region of Sudan that is equal in size to France – are endangering the largest humanitarian aid operation in the world. Today, aid convoys have become ...

Fighting in Somalia

Via BBC: Heavy Somali fighting amid crisisMore than 200,000 people have fled their homes since Ethiopian troops helped the government oust an Islamist group from Mogadishu in December, the UN says. [...] However, President Abdullahi Yusuf told the BBC that the situation was slowly improving, blaming the latest violence on the Islamists. "Our aim is to protect the public and the government ...

Darfur Genocide Mapped with Google Earth

Here's a fascinating project using modern mapping tools: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources ...

UN Sending Hybrid Peacekeeping Force to Darfur

Jessica Valenti passes on word that, "The United Nations, the Sudanese Government, the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (LAS) have agreed to deploy a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force to Darfur in an effort to end violence in the region." Good luck with that.

Moral Equivalence of Free Speech

Christopher Hitchens takes up the cause of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has come under fire in elite intellectual circles for writing a book claiming that life in the West is fundamentally superior to that in her native Somalia. I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation. After making this ...

No One is Going to Save Darfur

The Editors of the New Republic have come to a depressing conclusion: "It's becoming obvious: No one is going to save Darfur." Of course, that's been obvious to most of us for several years.

Uncircumcised Boys Sent Home From School

Twenty boys at Kiriani secondary school in Kenya's Eastern Province were sent home and told not to come back until they were circumcised. Officials cited fears they would be bullied by other students. The BBC report fails to answer the obvious question: How did they come to learn which boys to send home?

UN Sends All-Female U.N. Peacekeeping Unit to Liberia

The United Nations is sending its first-ever all-female peacekeeping force to Liberia. The United Nation's first all-female peacekeeping force – made up of 105 Indian policewomen – is set to deploy to the troubled west African country of Liberia, an official said Friday. The team, which has been training since September, leaves for Liberia on Sunday, said Abhishek Dayal, a ...

America’s Stealth Presence in Somalia

Andrew Cochran termed last night's attacks on al Qaeda targets there the "first publicly acknowledged military action against Somalian territory since 1993." His Counterterrorism Blog cohert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross reports for PajamasMedia, though, that "publicly acknowledged" is the key: U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. “In fact,” he said, “they were ...

Nigeria Pipeline Blast Kills Over 200

Thieves trying to steal gas from a pipeline in Lagos, Nigeria have caused an explosion that has killed over 200 people. At least 200 people were killed Tuesday when a pipeline carrying petroleum products exploded in Nigeria's biggest city of Lagos, a Red Cross official said. The death toll was expected to rise. Ige Oladimeji, a senior official for the ...