Africa on The Huffington Post

Sam Black: Copenhagen: A Theater of the Absurd

2009-12-22T15:41:15Z

Now that the Copenhagen climate change conference is over, the post-mortems are flooding print and online media outlets. The consensus among those who didn't participate in the conference seems to be that it was a failure. Failure is being blamed on President Obama, Congress, China, developing nations in general, and any number of other scapegoats.

But what surprised me the most wasn't that nothing of consequence was agreed to -- I fully expected that. I was surprised by the incredible volume of hypocritical, ludicrous, overstated, and simply bizarre statements that were released over the course of the conference. It was incredible! I think we owe it to the Copenhagen participants to recognize that, for these two weeks, they made the debate over health care seem reasonable by comparison. Here are some of my highlights:

African environmental and antipoverty campaigners and some delegates marched through the halls pressing for rich countries to pledge to limit warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, ratcheting down from the 2.0-degree threshold that was set as a no-go zone by the world's dominant nations in recent agreements.
"Two degrees, suicide!" the protesters chanted.

Every international conference has its own version of bizarre protesters, and it usually doesn't take long to find them.

Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77 plus China, spelt out exactly why the poor countries he represents were so incensed. "The text robs developing countries of their just and equitable and fair share of the atmospheric space. It tries to treat rich and poor countries as equal,"

The text is bad because it treats us equally! And this is unjust! How dare you treat us equally! Where's my medication? What does blue taste like? Why am I surrounded by purple rabbits?

A spokesman for Cafod, a development charity with close links to some of the poorest countries in the world, said: "This draft document reveals the backstage machinations of a biased host who, instead of acting as nonpartisan broker, is taking sides with the developed countries.

"The document should not even exist. There is a UN legal process which is the official negotiating text. The Danish text disrespects the solid, steady approach of the UN process."

Yes. How disrespectful of a draft paper. Also, the "solid, steady approach"? Really? I'd go with bizarre and ineffective, but OK.

"We have to ask him, when he provided trillions of dollars to save Wall Street, are the children of the world not deserving help to save their lives?" said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a diplomat from Sudan.

If the Sudanese really want to save the children of the world, I'd recommend they start in Darfur.

[U.S. negotiator Todd Stern] also insisted that the US would pay money into an international fund to aid climate adaptation and the rollout of clean technologies, but would not be guilt tripped into paying "reparations".

"We absolutely recognise our historic role in putting emissions in the atmosphere, up there, but the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that," he said."

A bold move by the US: moving from the "nothing's happening" aka "double middle finger" approach to the "we helped caused it but we're not guilty" aka "single middle finger" approach. At this pace, by next year we'll still be giving Tuvalu the finger, but while smiling.

But senior Indian negotiator Chandrashekar Dasgupta told Indian news agency PTI that India would not sign a deal that imposes binding targets.

"We are quite prepared through our national communications to report what we are doing, but that is for the purpose of information only," he said. "It is not subject to review, to verification, to re-negotiation, to dialogue or any such thing. It is a nationally determined voluntary target ... Nothing less, nothing more."

India, meanwhile, is sticking with the double middle finger approach.

EU leaders have agreed to pay 7.2bn euros (£6.5bn; $10.6bn) over the next three years to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

Particularly among some of the poorer African countries, there are demands for a lot more money considerably sooner, our correspondent says, and whether they accept these figures will depend on what else is on the table in Copenhagen.

You know an issue has crossed into a whole new level of crazy when countries are considering rejecting more than $10 billion in free money. In exchange for literally doing nothing.

"I think there's no doubt that China, when it says 40 to 45 percent reduction in energy intensity, is serious about that," said Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change. The more challenging hurdle, he said, is finding a way that China can prove to the outside world that it is reducing its emissions by the amount it claims.

Um...what? If we really thought China was serious about reducing emissions, wouldn't we not care so much about verification? Common sense fail.

"They're going to wait until the last hour of the last day and just as the other side is walking out they'll say, 'Hey, come back.' Just as they do every day in every market in China," Ms. Finamore said. "That's why they're the best negotiators in the world."

Yes. I'm sure President Obama's pre-summit prep sessions often involve trying to draw analogies to buying fruit.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was among the first heads of state to touch down in the Danish capital, avoiding a travel ban imposed by Western nations because he was attending to a U.N. conference. Mugabe was to address the conference Wednesday.

What, was Kim Jong Il not available?

"A hundred billion is never enough," [Indian environment minister Jairam] Ramesh said, "but it's a small step."

Actually, where I'm from, a hundred billion dollars is pretty much always enough.

Obama returned to the White House and said "extremely difficult and complex negotiations" had been needed in Copenhagen.

"This breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come."

Yes, it lays the foundation for years of international action. Specifically, the lack of any.

What a conference...

Susan Smalley, Ph.D.: The Susans I Met In The Slums Of Nairobi

2009-12-21T10:26:10Z

I visited Kibera last week - the largest slum in the world and the center of recent post-election violence in Kenya. We were guests of a not-for-profit organization called Comic Relief (our hosts out of the U.K.) that provide funds for multiple programs around the world to combat poverty with many centered in Africa. With local NGO leaders as our guide (and two soldiers carrying automatic rifles) we walked through a section of Kibera and an adjacent neighborhood slum of Nbuta to visit some families that live there.

I met three Susans on our travels amidst the winding dirt pathways cluttered with open sewage and mounds of garbage that weave among the million mud and tin structures of homes and businesses (tailors, barbers, stores, and toilets) that serve some 1.5 million inhabitants. Children were all around - as summer vacation is in full force - mostly playing (a few with marbles I noticed) or getting water from pumps (or waiting in lines to get water as it was sporadically on or off throughout the day). Women and men were going about their daily business and eyeing us with suspicion or a friendly hello.

The first Susan I met lives in Kibera and had been given a loan via Comic Relief to start a vegetable stand to raise money to buy one of the homes constructed by a local organization that are trying to upgrade the homes in the slums. The tin or mud huts could be replaced by concrete slab constructions at a cost anywhere from $700 U.S. to $5,000 U.S. The $5,000 bought a multistory concrete slab home with two bedrooms, a toilet, and cooking area. Since that cost was exorbitant to most, the lesser $700 purchase was more the norm (a foundation and four walls - no roof but potential to grow). The Susan I met had been one of the first 62 families to get a 'high end' home. She was awarded a home (one of the first 62) by a community council who determines which families are most eligible for homes. Awards are based on the person's capacity to save money and their contribution to the community through labor or leadership (digging sewer lines, construction, running community meetings) among other criteria. This Susan shared her home consisting of two rooms (each about eight by eight feet in size) with her husband and four children. And Susan was so proud of it, showing me her next design project - to be able to buy a piece of tin roofing to block the exposed hole in the ceiling of their bedroom to prevent the rain from flooding it all the time. I noticed her patch of dirt (about one foot by three) in front of her house which held some fresh vegetable plants and thought of my garden at home - just built last summer that spans 20 feet by 100 feet and might be considered small by U.S. standards.

The next Susan I met was part of a 'Grandmother' program by a local NGO and she lived in an adjacent illegal slum to Kibera. Research has shown that identifying a grandmother for youth who have lost their parents to HIV or violence is one of the more successful routes to their protection and future success. Since many children have no biological grandmother, the program trains grandmothers to care for multiple sets of kids. The next Susan I met was a grandmother to several families but one we had a chance to meet. Margaret (age 16) cares for her three siblings (11, nine, and seven) since her parents died when she was 13 years of age. Susan - a rotund woman probably about 60 with grey hair, bloodshot eyes due to the smoke from charcoal burners, and the kindest smile - took us into Margaret's mud hut. It was a single room, dark with an oil burner for light. Her three siblings sat on the floor while Margaret flipped through a small photo album. We asked her a few questions discovering that she loves math and biology and wishes to be a doctor some day. She said the only way she survived was because Susan helped her with food, water, and care when they were sick. I noticed a light bulb on the ceiling and said something about how great that she has electricity only to discover that it was merely a prop for 'decoration'. Her brother - little Kevin Minor was his name - flipped through the pages of a used and worn math workbook - the kind my kids grudgingly completed in kindergarten. We asked Margaret if she liked music but they had no radio or means of listening to it and the only reading material she had was a Christian handbook. I thought about all the books we have in our home leftover from the years of reading by our three now grown children....Harry Potter was definitely not part of Margaret's reading experiences.

The last Susan I met was an energetic leader in one of the Kibera communities. This time the Susan led us to a Muslim household in which a grandmother cared for eight or so grandchildren and great-grandchildren whose parents were killed or died of HIV. I don't remember the grandmother's name but I will never forget her face. At 89 she carried herself like the queen of a tribe or matriarch of a clan. Dressed in traditional garb and toothless, she smiled and talked with the authority and wisdom of someone who understands the value of love and family and humor. Her clan of some eight children stood nearby as she described their venture out of the slum when violence erupted after the election and homes were looted and burned. She had taken her brood of grandchildren back into the country-side to their tribal villages until the violence had settled down. With the support of the program we were viewing, she had returned to establish a vegetable vendor business and re-build her home. I thought of my grandmother who had died at 89 of Alzheimer's disease, alone in a nursing home, and how this grandmother would always be in the hub of her family when death arrived.

The poverty I saw was overwhelming and the Susans I met made it feel more personal in some way, bonded by the stamp of a name. But the experience just solidified my resolve to balance our resources better - to use less and share more. But I also realize that as we may export our resources to eradicate poverty around the world, we can't forget to import their 'technology' as well - a technology of human community - a reverence for family, a sense of pride in leadership and community involvement, and a shared vision to improve the lives of many not just one. Giving and Receiving always go hand-in-hand and meeting my fellow Susans living in Kenya helped me see that even more clearly.

John Prendergast: 'Five Myths about Sudan' in The Washington Post

2009-12-19T14:25:42Z

Let there be no mistake, with unfree elections coming in April and a referendum on the independence of the South the following January, Sudan is at dire risk of returning to full-scale war.

Part of the problem, as I addressed in the Washington Post's Outlook section on Sunday, are the myths that persist about Sudan among policymakers, diplomats and the public.

Policymakers, in particular, must admit that if nothing changes before April, U.S. taxpayers will have spent nearly $100 million to support the election of an indicted war-criminal and legitimize the iron-fisted rule of one of the world's most oppressive regimes.

The crackdown by the National Congress Party, or NCP, earlier this month, involving the arrests of senior opposition politicians and the use of tear-gas on protesters, is yet another demonstration that the basic requirements of credible elections, including freedom of expression and assembly, have yet to be met.

In Stealing an Election in Slow Motion, Enough's new report released today, I outline the risks of ignoring electoral prerequisites and holding non-credible elections in Sudan.

John Prendergast is Co-Founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

Sarah van Gelder: Climate Deal Flop Reveals Leadership Crisis

2009-12-19T13:31:46Z

The failure of world leaders in Copenhagen to come to terms with the climate crisis is provoking anger and disappointment. My colleague at YES! Magazine, Brooke Jarvis, reports on the climate deal and some early responses:

Even those who brokered it acknowledge that the deal on the table at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is too weak to stop catastrophic climate change.

The deal, brokered between the U.S., China, South Africa, India, and Brazil, has not yet been accepted by the 192 nations represented in Copenhagen, many of which have decried it.

The deal sets no definite target for greenhouse gas reductions. A goal of reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, present in earlier drafts, was removed. All references to keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius--a key demand of vulnerable countries, including African nations and small island states--were also dropped.

It calls for (but does not commit rich nations to) $30 billion over the next two years, followed by $100 billion per year after 2020, to assist poor nations with the costs of adaptation and mitigation.

Though some are defending the agreement as a first step, many others, particularly residents of the Global South and climate activists, say that the precedent set by the agreement is a dangerous one.

Early reactions

Kumi Naidoo, leader of Greenpeace International and TckTckTck:

Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change...

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.

During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down.

Climate science says we have only a few years left to halt the rise in emissions before making the kind of rapid reductions that would give us the best chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. We cannot change that science, so instead we will have to change the politics--and we may well have to change the politicians.

This is not over, people everywhere demanded a real deal before the Summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder.

Civil society, the bulk of which was locked out of the final days of this Climate Summit, now needs to redouble its efforts. Each and every one of us must hold our leaders to account. We must take the struggle to avert climate catastrophe into every level of politics, local, regional, national and international. We also need to take it into the board room and onto the high streets. We can either work for a fundamental change in our society or we can suffer the consequences of one.

Pablo Solon, Bolivia's ambassador to the U.N.:

This is completely unacceptable. How can it be that 25 to 30 nations cook up an agreement that excludes the majority of more than 190 nations. We have been negotiating for months on one of the gravest crises of our age, and yet our voice counts for nothing? If this is how world agreements will now be agreed, then it makes a nonsense of the U.N. and multilateralism.

The agreement talks of setting targets that limit warming to 2 degrees. The leaders of the rich countries should come to Bolivia to see what global warming is already doing to our country. We have droughts, disappearing glaciers and water shortages. Imagine this scaled up three times. We cannot accept an agreement that condemns half of humanity.

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130
developing countries:

This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change skepticism in action.

It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.

Bill Mckibben, founder of 350.org

[President Obama] blew up the United Nations. The idea that there's a world community that means something has disappeared tonight. The clear point is, you poor nations can spout off all you want on questions like human rights or the role of women or fighting polio or handling refugees. But when you get too close to the center of things that count--the fossil fuel that's at the center of our economy--you can forget about it. We're not interested. You're a bother, and when you sink beneath the waves we don't want to hear much about it... What exactly is the point of the U.N. now?

He [also] formed a league of super-polluters, and would-be super-polluters. China, the U.S., and India don't want anyone controlling their use of coal in any meaningful way. It is a coalition of foxes who will together govern the henhouse. It is no accident that the targets are weak to nonexistent.

Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity:

We all know what we must do to solve global warming, but even the architects of this deal acknowledge that it does not take those necessary steps. Merely acknowledging the weaknesses of the deal, as President Obama has done, does not excuse its failings. If this is the best we can do, it is not nearly good enough. We stand at the precipice of climatic tipping points beyond which a climate crash will be out of our control. We cannot make truly meaningful and historic steps with the United States pledging to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by only 3 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The science demands far more.

The people of the United States voted for President Obama based on his promise of change and hope. But the only change today's agreement brings is a greater risk of dangerous climate change. And the only hope that flows from Copenhagen stems not from the president's hollow pronouncements but from the birth of a diverse global movement demanding real solutions and climate justice -- demands made with a collective voice growing loud enough that in short order politicians will no longer be able to ignore it.

YES! Online Editor Brooke Jarvis wrote this report as part of YES! Magazine's coverage of Copenhagen. YES! is a national media organization that reports on powerful ideas and practical action that are building a more just and sustainable world.

Dr. Mark Dybul: Uganda's Anti-Gay Law: Opposition Grounded in Bipartisan Confluence of Human Rights and Public Health

2009-12-19T11:28:31Z

There has been appropriate moral condemnation of Uganda's proposed anti-gay law that originally included the death penalty. Evangelical uber Pastor Rick Warren led the way with a moving and powerful video directed to clergy in Uganda, followed by the Holy See, conservative Senator Tom Coburn and the Obama Administration. It is good to see ecumenism and bipartisanship. But in addition to the clear human rights issues, there are important public health principles at stake - as the current US Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Eric Goosby, has rightly noted.

Gay men and women cannot be legislated out of existence. The practical impact of the law will be to undermine Uganda's efforts to combat its HIV epidemic. That would be a tragedy in any country, but perhaps more so in a place with a record of leadership and success on HIV prevention. UNAIDS launched a "know your epidemic" campaign a few years back. It makes great sense - if there is insufficient knowledge about the drivers of the spread of HIV in a country, or areas of a country, it is impossible to dedicate resources to the programs that are most likely to be effective. Recently, Ugandan officials have embraced that approach regarding discordant couples - where one person in a relationship is HIV positive and another is negative - because data show that transmission in such pairs was contributing significantly to the spread of HIV in their country.

What is unknown in Uganda, and much of Africa, is the contribution of men who have sex with men (MSM) to HIV transmission. While it is commonplace for officials to say MSM does not contribute significantly to HIV in Africa, the fact is that we do not know. The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief began to support MSM surveys in several African countries during the Bush Administration. Progress was slow and difficult due to cultural issues, which must be understood and respected to effectively move forward. The Ugandan law requires anyone who is aware of the homosexuality of any person to report them to authorities. Rick Warren was right to note that the requirement would make pastors policemen. But it also prevents public health officials from assessing the factors driving the spread of HIV. Without adequate knowledge of the drivers of the epidemic, it is not possible to effectively plan and implement programs to combat it.

In a related way, outlawing gay people, especially in such a draconian way, simply drives them underground where they cannot or will not access prevention, care and treatment services. Public health officials would not only be handicapped from effectively directing programs, the law would directly contribute to the spread of HIV and lead to increased sickness and death. That would counter the laudable gains Uganda has made in prevention and more recent advances in expanding treatment and care. Even if MSM do not currently contribute significantly to the HIV epidemic, if they are pushed away from services that could quickly change. This is a lesson learned the hard way in the US. While the epidemic has been stable or declining in previously high-risk populations, there has been an explosion in the inner cities and among African Americans, in particular women, who are often beyond the reach of prevention and care programs. For these reasons, President Bush talked about the need to deal with HIV in inner cities and prisons in a State of the Union Address and President Obama is developing a national HIV strategy.

Which brings us to the final point - stigma and discrimination are rarely good for public health. In addition to driving away people in need and at risk of spreading infection, stigma and discrimination cause others genuinely at risk to believe they are safe and need not act to protect themselves. And by ghettoizing a disease among what are considered marginalized populations, it lightens the pressure on policymakers to act quickly. We saw this phenomenon in the early days of HIV in the US, and we are seeing it today in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.

Stigma and discrimination have in no small part fueled the HIV pandemic at the level of person-to-person interaction and at the highest levels of policymaking. It is also just wrong. For these reasons, President Bush directed his team to work to do away with one of the vestiges in the US - the unnecessary restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles for HIV-positive people to enter the US: a process that President Obama completed.

Sadly, Uganda is not the only country considering stigmatizing and discriminatory laws. Opposition to such measures pulls together a unique confluence of conservatives and liberals, people of deep religious faith and those more secular in outlook and principles of human rights and good public health. Seems like something worth standing up for.

Priyanka Boghani: Invisible Children Exhibit: From Darkness to Sight

2009-12-17T17:49:51Z

As you enter the Bleecker Street gallery it smells faintly of fresh paint. But the sight that greets you is a floor strewn with a few beaten straw mats and ragged blankets. This is the physical detritus of living through one of Africa's longest, most treacherous wars.

The Parc Foundation gallery is currently hosting the non-profit Invisible Children's exhibit on the war in Uganda, and the organization's efforts to help the victims of the conflict. The "From Darkness To Sight" exhibit is more educational than artistic, but it offers by turns chilling and hopeful testimonials of the conflict.

For anyone unfamiliar with Invisible Children, it is an organization dedicated to helping the children caught up in the conflict raging in Northern Uganda and neighboring African countries between the notorious Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government, with the Acholi people caught in the crossfire.

I first heard of Invisible Children when earnest young volunteers were touring the country in 2005 with their first film also titled "Invisible Children," documenting the phenomenon of the night commuters. These children walked miles each night and day to sleep in large groups in order to avoid capture by the LRA rebels. The story of the filmmakers was equally compelling: three college kids (Bobby Bailey, Jason Russell, Laren Poole) armed with video equipment capturing evidence of some of the worst human rights atrocities of our age.

In the spring of 2006, I participated in their Global Night Commute with thousands of other urban high school and college kids, walking a few miles and sleeping outside to draw attention to the conflict. Since then, Invisible Children has been busy writing petitions, leading visits to Congress, and setting up systems to support former abducted children.

The exhibit at Parc Foundation is an eye-opener for anyone unfamiliar with the conflict. One video focuses on "The Commuted" -- throngs of young children, some barefoot, some smiling in the darkness, all walking together to sleep in town centers, sprawled on floors. The images are surreal: entire villages populated only with children, defenseless and fragile. Innocent, a young boy who is a night commuter, says, "I will keep walking until there is peace."

One of the more curious parts of the exhibit is a black circle drawn on the floor, about 10 feet in diameter. Its meaning remains mysterious until you find a small sign that says simply, "In this space lives a family of eight." Those are the conditions faced by the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), sometimes forcefully relocated by a paranoid government fighting Kony's rebels. The camps they are moved to are impoverished, with meager rations and not enough guards to protect them from attacks. One man says, "It is going to be the total destruction of the Acholi."

Large photographs line the room showing pre-pubescent boys standing casually, some smiling, armed with sticks and rifles. A small plaque says, "Boys of around 13 years are the ideal: large enough to hold a gun and travel through rugged terrain yet young enough to indoctrinate and break into submission." The statistics are mind-numbingly grim: 75,000 children abducted as either soldiers or sex slaves making up 90% of the LRA. Just when you cannot stand the gloom, the light from the next room streams in, with cheerful music.

This is where Invisible Children showcases their various efforts: Schools for Schools, the Bracelet Campaign, Visible Children Scholarship Fund and Mend. The Bracelet Campaign assists the jobless in Uganda by having them hand craft bracelets that consumers elsewhere can buy, with the money going towards efforts in Uganda. Similarly, Mend employs women who were formerly abducted by the LRA as tailors and bag makers. A short film playing on a television introduces these bag-making ladies bursting with personality and guileless humor, who sew their names onto each bag they produce.

Marie Havens, the Mend Director of Design, gave an e-mail update on the Schools for Schools program, saying, "[December 17th] is actually the final day of our S4S competition where high schools in the US compete to raise money for corresponding schools in Northern Uganda. We've raised over $620,000 in just one month alone and all donations go directly to rebuild schools on the ground. It's incredible."

As for the ladies of Mend, Havens said, "we prefer to take a slow and steady approach with expansion." Currently, the program includes 13 women. Mend has plans to add more women, but wants to couple "growth with the creation of mentorship opportunities." Ideally, "we plan to take the top women currently at the center and train them to be future mentors and leaders of the new group."

Unlike other exhibit gift shops, the table selling Invisible Children merchandise feels oddly guiltless, offering those same bags made by the ladies at Mend, and awareness raising DVDs and T-shirts with proceeds going back to the organization.

In 2010, look for the feature film by Invisible Children to be released. The organization will also continue its programs, including those listed above, and the Visible Scholarship Program and the Teacher Exchange Program.

Though the situation seems a desperate one, who are we to be discouraged when the children in Uganda can still smile and dance? See the exhibit, visit the website, watch the movie, get involved.

The Parc Foundation exhibit is going on until Jan. 10, 2010, with teachers from Uganda visiting on Jan. 1.

Edward Lozzi: Obama and Clinton Fight International Parental Kidnappings

2009-12-17T17:43:02Z

A father puts his life on the line to get his son back. The mother, a former high fashion model is a foreign national kidnapper and a fugitive wanted by the FBI.

Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly voiced her support and threw the weight of her office behind a Hague parental kidnapping case of a boy kidnapped by his mother four years ago.

Clinton said that while this case may be getting national publicity, there are many other similar cases involving American children: "These cases are across the world, we must fight this rising problem."

Clinton revealed the startling fact that this is not a unique case. There are about 46 cases in Brazil alone, and countless others worldwide.

Even when President Obama met his Brazilian counterpart at the White House on March 14th, the kidnapping of an eight-year-old American boy was on the agenda. Although the fate of the world economy was the most pressing issue for Mr. Obama and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Obama privately discussed the case of the kidnapped American child in Brazil, which has become a cause celebre in Congress.

Ten days after Obama's meeting in March, U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the Brazilian government to return a boy who is living with his stepfather in Brazil to his American father. Of 432 lawmakers in the House of Representatives, 418 voted in favor of the resolution to urge Brazil to return the child to the U.S. This was a landmark action by congress towards preventing further international parental kidnappings.

Many children who are abducted to other countries by parents are never returned to the United States. A parent who is left behind when a child is abducted to another country faces daunting obstacles to finding and recovering the child. At first, the left-behind parent does not know who can or will help. The parent's emotional and financial resources soon are stretched to the limit. These cases can cost a parent between $35,000 to $300,000 and up. When years pass without the return of the child, the parent is left with unresolved grief. What if a parent does not have the money? They lose their child forever.

As one parent has stated, "It's worse than if your child died, because you cannot say the child is at peace now. You live every day wondering if your child is OK, if he/she is being abused or neglected. When will I see them again. My child probably thinks I don't love them anymore. You never get over it."

Berger South African case

One extreme example of an international parental kidnapping is a case from South Africa, where a child was kidnapped twice.

It entailed one small innocent child, two international kidnappings to South Africa, three false passports, four years of litigation under the International Hague Convention on child abduction and fighting at least 15 court actions - between two continents.

A father's quest to get his son back home has not been easy.

While living in South Africa for eight months to recover his son. Mr. Berger was faced with two false arrests attempts, several death threats, was ultimately imprisoned while entering the country from Namibia, and stripped of his human rights to see his child for months at a time. Hal Berger finally has achieved his pursuit of happiness. He and his son Liam are together again.

Liam Berger, only four years old, the U.S.-born child snatched by his maternal mother Linda Volschenk Berger late last year and taken halfway around the world on false passports is now living a normal life with his father Hal Berger.

Recently, the California family courts ruled that the South African woman who snatched her son twice from her ex-husband and fled to South Africa, would lose all legal custody of her son. In addition, she faces extradition for her "felony complaint" for disappearing with Liam. She is wanted by the FBI.

Parental kidnappings are on the rise. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 parental kidnappings per year. The U.S. State department Office of children's issues has reported there are at least 1,500 international parental kidnapping cases open per year. That number only includes the reported cases. Many cases go unreported as parents don't know who to turn to for help.

In 1993, the U.S. Congress enacted the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (18 U.S.C. 1204), making the abduction of a child to another country or the retention of a child in another country a Federal felony. The Act specifies that, where applicable, the Hague Convention should take priority as a remedy for returning the child.

However, it is a federal felony crime to remove a child from the United States without the other parent's consent. Under Sec. 1204 of the International parental kidnapping Act; (a) Whoever removes a child from the United States, or attempts to do so, or retains a child (who has been in the United States) outside the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights shall be fined under this title or imprisoned up to 3 years, or both.

The Legal Framework Civil law

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention) is an international treaty currently in force between the United States and 50 other countries. The treaty only applies between countries that are both parties to the Convention. The implementing legislation in the United States, enacted in 1988, is the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 42 U.S.C. 11601-11610. A Hague Convention proceeding is a civil proceeding brought in the party country to which the child was abducted or in which the child is retained. If the Hague proceeding is commenced within 1 year of the abduction or retention, the judge must order the child returned, usually to the country of habitual residence.

South African child kidnapping case

In October 2004, Linda Berger departed to South Africa with her son, Liam to visit her family. She swore they would be back. They would return to California where they live.

Hal Berger a U.S. investment banker was living with his ex South African model wife Linda and their son Liam in Santa Monica, California. Wanting to see her homeland again, Linda convinced Hal that she will take a short holiday to South Africa with their son. Hal was reluctant to allow his son to leave the country, as South Africa is a twenty three hour flight, not very safe, nor politically sound.

While in South Africa the Berger family enjoyed the experience of the beautiful landscape in the heart of the rural bush veldt of the Northern Limpopo Province in a remote area south of Botswana, at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers. Linda's family owns an 8,000 acre farm near the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe [formerly Rhodesia] and the northern part of South Africa.

This area is home of no less than seven of Africa's most amazing animals: the African elephant, the lion, giraffe, the baobab tree, the eland, the ostrich, and the koori bustard. Hal thought they were a happy family.

During the trip Linda suffered a miscarriage and was suppose to stay in South Africa for a few extra weeks. Hal needed to depart South Africa and return to work in the U.S. When he returned home his worst fears were realized, Linda was not planning to return to the U.S. and she kidnaps Liam.

Linda declared that she would not return with their son from South Africa. Hal quit his job as an investment banker in the middle of a multimillion dollar deal and jumped on a plane.

Hal filed the International Hague Convention for Child Abduction with the U.S State Department. The Hague Convention protects children around the world from the wrongful kidnapping of children by a parent.

Hal was determined to get his son home even after his life was threatened. Linda's family attempted to throw him in jail where they hired an assassin to kill him in the rural Limpopo province. Hal faced a long and a bitter fight in the corrupt courts during his eight months in the country.

Mr. Berger escaped an illegal arrest attempt in Sourh Africa and was escorted by his attorneys to the U.S. Consulate for asylum. While Hal remained at the U.S. Consulate, his attorneys ran to court and launched an urgent application to dismiss the trumped up false assault charges.

In South Africa he discovered that men have "no civil rights" relating to parental kidnapping and custody cases. Hal was caught in a political web as his wife's family continued to delay the court proceedings for eight months. The courts striped away his visitation rights to see his son and were trying to prosecute him for trumped up false assault charges. Hal filed charges with the South African Human Rights commission.

South Africa did not treat Linda's criminal act as a kidnapping. Linda's family continued to try to break him down emotionally and physically. Hal's love for his son was too strong to just give up.

When interviewed, Hal Berger claimed, "I felt like a trapped man living in South Africa fighting the Afrikaans post-Apartheid culture and their reversal of racial power, corruption in the police department and death & jail threats by her family."
Hal vowed,

"I am not leaving this country without my son in my arms."

After eight months Hal finally prevailed in the South African High court.

On his return flight home Linda and Raynier, her boyfriend, were waiting at the transfer gate in the Amsterdam airport and tried to grab Liam. Berger checked into the airport hotel to avoid the confrontation only to be greeted by a team of Airport police who broke into his room and claiming that Linda said Liam was kidnapped by Berger. Hal Berger and Liam were detained in the police station for five hours.

The U.S. Consulate in Amsterdam was dispatched to the airport police station. The U.S. State Department in Washington clarified the matter with the Amsterdam authorities. Hal and Liam were escorted in a five ton special bomb squad SUV to their hotel and driven to the airport by the U.S. Consulate the next morning.

Liam returned to the U.S. in December 2006 to lead a normal life playing soccer, going to pre-school, birthday parties and parks, while his parents were battling in the California family courts.

Ten months later. Hal's biggest fear became another reality. Liam did not show up at the Circle of Children pre-school in Santa Monica. Hal went to pick up Liam at school only to find his empty locker and that Liam was missing.

Liam's mother and her boyfriend Rynier Bosman using fake passports drove Liam covertly over the Mexican border in a taxi and flew him Mexico City to Paris, Paris to Kenya, Kenya to Harare Zimbabwe and then drove him over the border to their family farm on the northern border of South Africa.

Hal Berger immediately launched a media campaign in the U.S. and South Africa, deployed an investigation team in South Africa, conducted onsite meetings at the FBI, LAPD, and secured a court order for full custody and a felony warrant for her arrest.

Since the FBI, LAPD and U.S. State department did not move quickly enough or help,
Hal assembled his own mercenary recovery team comprising of military special force operatives. They were deployed to South Africa within fourteen days. Gustava, the lead has been involved in the recovery of seventy children around the world. Gus is a former Ranger Instructor and a member of a classified "Anti-Terrorist" Commando Team within the Ist Airborne Ranger Battalion and Special Ops Delta team.

The South African team of investigators used cell telephone records, surveillance, GPS tracking devices and banking information to determine the exact whereabouts of Liam and Linda.

Fearing that he would be thrown in jail if he flew into South Africa, Hal stayed in Namibia for nearly a month before entering South Africa. Unfortunately Linda's family owns a security company and has ties with the South African police department.

Hal and his armed protection officer drive over the border from Namibia into South Africa in the middle of the night. Once they reach the border post they realized there was a warrant alert for Hal. Hal was separated from his body guard, handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police pickup truck.

The border police drove Mr. Berger at 110 miles per hour toward the border town of Upington. The police vehicle broke down. Hal was left handcuffed in the back of the truck when they lowered the covers over the windows to blacken the back cab. Hal thought his life was over.

Fortunately, the recovery team stationed in Johannesburg woke his lawyer up in the middle of the night. Darryl Ackerman, called the police and demanded Hal's whereabouts. Hal was locked up and thrown in prison that evening.

Darryl Ackerman's successful defense team quash his ex wife's their trumped up allegations and the Judge ordered the immediate return of Liam with his father to the U.S.

The police at the Johannesburg airport tried to stop Liam's departure at the gate. However, Gus Zama said. "There is nothing you are going to show me short of a court order from Interpol that's stopping me from taking this child back to the U.S."

Liam celebrated his 5th birthday and leads a normal and happy life. Liam says when he grows up he wants to be an Animal Rescue person and a businessman.

Hal Berger has committed to a life time of helping other parents victimized by parental abduction through his nonprofit organization, Global Missing Children Fund.

Mr. Berger has been working with Congressman Howard Berman's office, Chairman of Foreign Affairs House of Representatives on a parent act that will provide some reform to improve the process of recovering internationally kidnapped children. They are close to realizing this legislation. In the meantime, Hal Berger watches his son more closely than most parents in the United States.

Read more: Liam Berger, Edward Lozzi, South Africa, Linda Volschenk Berger, Hague Convention, Kidnapping, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hal Berger, International Kidnapping, Foreign Nationals, Fbi, David Goldman, Brazilian Government, World News

Matthew Kavanagh: Five House Chairmen to Obama: We All Promised Global AIDS Funding ...

2009-12-17T16:15:25Z

The Obama Administrations' major, high-profile foreign policy initiative in the developing world cannot be 30,000 new troops in Afghanistan. Now it looks like some Democratic members of congress are realizing that.

Yesterday Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee and Committee Chairmen Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Donald Payne and Eliot Engel sent a letter to President Obama urging him to make good on global AIDS promises. They helped pass the reauthorization of global AIDS programs last year. Since the major backers of the Afghanistan policy seem to be those who don't actually support the President's agenda or future electoral goals, it would seem to be in his interest to re-engage on this one: save a lot of lives, make good on his Nobel speech, and keep some key allies happy.

ORIGINAL LETTER is online here.

December 15, 2009

President Barack Obama

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

As Members of Congress who supported the reauthorization of our global AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs last year we write to encourage you to re-commit boldly to U.S. global leadership in the fight against these three pandemics. Having recently commemorated World AIDS Day, we are concerned about reports that continued rapid roll out of AIDS treatment is endangered in Africa.

A few weeks ago the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that AIDS is the number one killer of women between the ages of 15-49. AIDS remains among the biggest infectious killers the world has ever seen and infectious diseases remain by far the biggest killers of people living in developing countries. It was for these reasons that we joined with you last year to pass the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act. This landmark bill authorized $48 billion over five years to deepen and expand our commitment to the fight against these three diseases.

Despite the bipartisan and bicameral support behind Lantos-Hyde we will fail to meet its promise if the current funding trends continue over the next 3 years. In fiscal year 2009 the U.S. provided $5.628 billion for bilateral AIDS programs and $1 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in addition to NIH research funding. In fiscal year 2010 we will provide $5.828 billion for bilateral AIDS and $1.05 billion for the Global Fund. Without expanded funding beyond these 2-3 percent rate increases, it will be incredibly difficult to substantially expand access to treatment, roll out promising prevention programs, train new health workers, or care for the millions of orphans that the bill requires.

In order to get back on track with the authorization levels in Lantos-Hyde, we urge you to commit $7.5 billion for bilateral AIDS programs and $1.75 billion for the Global Fund in your fiscal year 2011 budget request. In addition, we ask you to include $650 million for bilateral TB programming and $924 million for malaria.

AIDS treatment expansion has been a huge success--with evidence it is saving millions of lives and driving down rates of child and maternal deaths. Yet as the group Doctors Without Borders has recently reported, programs are beginning to stop enrolling new patients when only about a third of those in immediate need of treatment under new WHO guidance have access to it[1]. We urge you to reverse this trend by re-committing the U.S. to do our part toward Universal Access to AIDS treatment and using your global leadership to call on national and donor governments to do the same.

One concrete step toward asserting the continued leadership of the United States would be to offer to host the next replenishment conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria next year. Hosting the replenishment conference would send a strong signal to the international community that the United States remains committed to ensuring the long term stability and success of the Global Fund and its partners.

Finally, the new mandate of PEPFAR under Lantos-Hyde was to be bolder and broader--to, among other things, strengthen health systems by training 140,000 new health workers. We believe in this goal and call on you to ensure that these health workers are truly additional, fully-trained health professionals.

We believe that taking these three actions will help ensure the United States continues to provide bold leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the year to come. We thank you for considering our request and we look forward to working together with you and your Administration to reach our shared goals.

Sincerely,

Barbara Lee

Member of Congress

Henry A. Waxman

Chairman

Committee on Energy & Commerce

Donald M. Payne

Chairman

Subcommittee on Africa &Global Health

Eliot L. Engel

Chairman

Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere

John Conyers, Jr.

Chairman

Committee on the Judiciary

Sanjay Khanna: Copenhagen Meltdown

2009-12-17T13:36:04Z

Angry frustration is boiling over in the city where NGOs and developing countries see no deal in sight.

An earlier version of this article is cross posted on The Tyee, "B.C.'s Home for News, Culture and Solutions."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenpeaceinternational/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The already sharp concern among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) about the pace and process surrounding the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen grew more urgent yesterday, with only two days remaining until the conference's official conclusion.

Journalists rose from their computers and ran for the exits of the official media centre to follow a loud protest march in the main hallway of Bella Centre, the conference venue.

Led by indigenous conference participants, approximately 100 protesters chanted, "Join the people's assembly," an apparent reference to the restrictions on democratic process they complain may be subverting the potential of the landmark conference to achieve the goal of drastic CO2 emissions reductions that could help to prevent runaway climate change.

Protesters led NGOs and journalists outside the centre to gather with an estimated 4,000 protesters, according to the Guardian.

According to a protester who requested his name be withheld, this large central protest was organized by Climate Camp, a global activist group motivated by the example of suffragettes who campaigned for women's voting rights in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th century.

"Thousands of people gathered to protest knowing it was probable we'd have our hands tied behind our backs for hours, shit ourselves, and be placed in cages," said the unnamed protester.

'Talks are in crisis'

Yet the growing impatience in Copenhagen may also be a predictable outcome of talks that remain at a standstill.

Insufficient planning may also have contributed to conference woes.

Non-governmental organizations have seen access to the U.N. Climate Conference severely restricted as the conference has unfolded in part because the conference venue has a capacity of 15,000 -- a number three times too small to accommodate the 45,000 registered participants.

In yesterday's afternoon plenary, dissatisfaction and frustration amongst developing nations and the Least Developing Countries group (LDCs) emerged during what appeared to be a breakdown in the official negotiations, and seemed to mirror the impatience of NGOs.

"The talks are in crisis and we are very concerned at the direction they are taking," said David Turnbull, director of Climate Action Network, an NGO that represents 500 organizations.

Jeremy Hobbs, the head of Oxfam International, the international aid organization, went further.

"After nearly two weeks of volatile and pretty acrimonious negotiation," he said, "two years of work look like they're still up in the air, unresolved with less than two days to go.

"This is beyond negotiators and beyond ministers to resolve and we are strongly hoping this will now be taken to the political level by heads of state where it needs to be resolved politically."

Adding considerable tension, the Danish government may have strategically targeted civil society organizations that have publicly called for "non-violent confrontational" protest.

The phrase, which suggests both non-violence and rebellion, may have provoked anxiety among security officials here. Nevertheless, the attempt to recast Gandhian non-violence signals among some campaigners an intense desire to influence nation states and to prevent intensifying suffering caused by the cumulative toll of industrialization, ecological degradation, and climate change.

Avaaz and Friends of the Earth, significant members of the TckTckTck campaign for "bold climate action," didn't participate in the protests, which is why they were shocked today to be officially "de-badged" by the United Nations. Nevertheless, they continue to demand that governments of the world agree to limit greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

History of broken promises

Inside the plenary to conspicuous rounds of applause, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez cited protesters' signs in his plenary address, referring to the diplomatic positions of developed countries at these talks.

"Don't change the climate, change the system," he read.

And: "If the climate were a bank, they'd already have saved it."

Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Bethuel Mosisili represented the Least Developing Countries group of 49 nations.

"We look to the future with great apprehension," he said. "What distinguishes the LDC group is the very limited capability to adapt to this situation. LDC group realizes that climate change is not compatible with sustainable development."

Senegalese President Adboulaye Wade commented on the negotiation process and indicated displeasure with a history of broken promises from developed nations in meeting both financial commitments and greenhouse gas emissions targets.

He said that developed countries had a "promise strategy" that was "designed to make us forget previous promises." At the same time this strategy was being played out, he added, "Lake Chad is growing smaller and smaller" and the "Congo forest has been massacred by European operators."

Journalists dismayed

Journalists here who haven't yet grown dismayed by the process here in Copenhagen are stewing in a vortex of anger and frustration among the parties that are most cognizant of, or most affected by, climatic breakdown. As journalists, we're in the privileged position of bearing witness to the largely polite indignation expressed by NGOs held at bay from the conference center, the humiliation and anger of protesters struck brutally by Danish police batons, and the impatience of deadlocked governments that don't seem to be able to find the political will to successfully conclude the highly anticipated climate negotiations.

Today's developments don't bode well for civil society's meaningful contribution to resolving some of the thornier issues of the treaty negotiation process, including climate mitigation, adaptation and migration.

"It's fucked," says Jade Lindgaard, a reporter for Mediapart, an online news magazine based in France. "It makes me more than sad, it makes me angry."

Lockerbie Bomber Missing: Al-Megrahi Can't Be Reached, Reports Times

2009-12-16T01:47:27Z

UK authorities do not know where convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is. According to The Times, the Libyan national convicted of in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that ultimately killed 270 in Scotland, has not been in touch with UK authorities, as mandated upon release:

Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish government could face a new crisis.

Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.

Megrahi was freed from the UK's Greenock Prison in Scotland in August 2009 on compassionate grounds. UK Officials said that Megrahi was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing soon returned to a hero's welcome in Libya

The Times' Health Editor Sam Lister reports that Megrahi has not made recent visits to the hospital for his chemotherapy treatments and wonders what the convicted man's status could be. Lister's analysis:

Al-Megrahi is younger than the average sufferer at stage 4 and the same type of cancer can grow at different rates in different people. What can be said with some certainty, however, is that a prolonged stay away from hospital is unlikely to be a positive sign.

Read more: Lockerbie, Libya, Megrahi Missing, Lockerbie Bomber, Prostate Cancer, Terrorism, Pan Am 103, Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi, Megrahi Dead, World News

Jackie K. Cooper: Invictus : Done the Eastwood Way

2009-12-15T17:54:54Z

There is Hollywood's way of making movies and then there is the Eastwood way. Actor/Director Clint Eastwood stamps each of his films with his own imprint. They are straight to the point movies that don't waste the audience's time on superfluous events. This has worked for Eastwood in the past and it works for him again in his new film Invictus.

The film deals with the period of Nelson Mandela's life following his release from prison after twenty-seven years. Soon thereafter he was elected President of South Africa. He presided over a divided country. The blacks don't trust the whites and vice versa. In order to unite the country Mandela (Morgan Freeman) came up with the idea of using sports.

Rugby is the sport of choice in South Africa and the Springbok team represented South Africa. The team was lead by Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) and he and his teammates were far from favorites to win the 1995 World Cup. Still Mandela thought they could win and he enlisted the help of Francoise to inspire the team to greatness.

This is the bare bones of the plot and the bare bones of the script. We get glimpses along the way of the country, Mandela and Pienaar but there are no "getting to know you" scenes. It is either basic to the plot or it is not shown.

At first this lack of detail is off-putting but as the film progresses the audience is drawn into the quest for glory by the rugby team and with Mandela's vision of unity. The emotions of the story have a life of their own and eventually make the movie a rousing success.

Freeman is amazing as Mandela. He has the look of the man as well as his speech patterns. It is a perfect melding of man and role. Eastwood knows how to draw the best performance from his friend and he makes his performance a celebration of the power of Mandela and his place in history.

As Pienaar, Damon is very low key, which is in keeping with the role he is playing. Pienaar is an athlete, pure and simple. He appreciates the politics of what is happening, but he keeps his focus on the game. In every way Pienaar's life is second in importance to that of Mandela, and so it is with the screenplay. Damon has the supporting role and he enhances Morgan's performance at every turn.

The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and sports violence.

Most of us know little to nothing about the sport of rugby, but that is not a block to enjoying this film. As long as you can appreciate the dream of unity Mandela has, and how he uses the team to achieve that goal then you will be able to follow the film. Freeman and Damon are at the top of their game and they are in the hands of the maestro himself. Eastwood does things the "Eastwood way" and ends up with one of the best movies of the year.

I scored Invictus an inviting 8 out of 10.

Jackie K. Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com

Sarkozy, Obama Pressure Ethiopia's Zenawi To Betray Africa's Future At Climate Talks

2009-12-15T15:19:50Z

NGOs and civil society groupings are reacting with anger and disappointment to a joint appeal by France and "Ethiopia, representing Africa" for a so-called 'Copenhagen Accord' to result from the current COP15 negotiations being held in the Danish capital. The French / Ethiopian proposal appeared on the French Presidency's website today.

Robbie Gennet: The Stoning of Tiger Woods

2009-12-15T14:17:20Z

Have you seen the latest barbarism out of Somalia? A man named Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim was stoned to death by Islamic militants for adultery -- literally buried up to his chest and pounded with big rocks until dead. Here's the link.

If you can bear to look at those pictures, just imagine that was Tiger Woods in his place. Not that I wish that on Tiger (or anyone) but in the majority of countries, that is an abomination, a cruel medieval punishment meted with no civilized law or justice. Adultery is an unpleasant and destructive act that happens all too frequently but this kind of "justice" is thankfully rare. However, it is jarring to see that it actually still happens in the world, especially now that we have pictures and videos streaming across the internet. Imagining Tiger Woods in the same situation is pretty horrifying, but it does illustrate the dichotomy between the civilized world and the Stone Age (pardon the pun). If John Edwards once famously pointed out Two Americas, this shows that there are Two Earths, and one of them seems stuck in the Middle Ages, or worse.

I guess Tiger is lucky to live in a country where the crime for adultery is only ruining your career, being exposed and exploited by tabloids and television, and getting beat up by your wife. Perhaps at this point, he's feeling like nothing could be worse. However, I'm sure if he sees these pictures of poor Ibrahim, he would feel a lot luckier that he lives in a "civilized" society. All that being said, the multiple women whom he shtupped must also be glad they live in the US, as the girl who Ibrahim was accused of having an affair with received 100 lashes, and we're not talking fake ones for your eyes. The bright side of her dark situation was that she wasn't put to death because she was not married during their affair. As to Ibrahim, he won't be on the cover of tabloids, won't be discussed in the "news" and won't be able to move to France like Tiger is purported to be considering. But Ibrahim's death should be a reminder of the cruelty that humans can unleash upon each other, and how far we as a species still need to evolve.

It is a shame that one of the worlds greatest golfers has put his career on hiatus simply because he couldn't keep his club in his golfbag, and we all can sympathize with his wife and her public shame. But at the same time, the Woods can go on with their lives, while Ibrahim cannot. Perhaps when Tiger is sipping espresso in a French Cafe, he'll raise a toast to Ibrahim and think a little harder about where he aims his putz.

France And Ethiopia In Climate Change Agreement

2009-12-15T13:19:46Z

A joint call by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for new taxes on aviation, shipping and financial transactions could raise the billions needed to tackle climate change and break the deadlock in Copenhagen, said the international development agency ActionAid in a statement issued here Tuesday.

Ray Chambers: Encouraging Indicators in the Fight Against Malaria

2009-12-15T11:57:45Z

The World Health Organization released today the 2009 World Malaria Report, which demonstrates that we are succeeding in the global campaign to end deaths from a disease that takes the lives over one million people each year. Thanks to unprecedented levels of funding and extraordinary collaboration among partners, the malaria community has achieved remarkable progress.

Over 140 million long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets have been delivered across sub-Saharan Africa between 2006 and 2008, protecting over 280 million lives, or 35 percent of the population. The number of households in Africa with access to a net has doubled in two years. With 90 percent of all malaria deaths occurring in this region, this translates into a powerful stand against this disease.

The application of these proven tools and methods have saved lives, as the World Malaria Report indicates an encouraging number of African countries have reduced malaria deaths and cases by more than 50 percent since 2000.

As we mark the 12-month countdown to the Secretary-General's December-2010 deadline for universal access to malaria-control interventions, this report confirms that we are on the path to defeating this disease.

Lori Pottinger: Climate Change and Water: Will a River Still Run Through It?

2009-12-14T17:03:56Z

Despite climate
deniers’ attempts to slow progress with the “Climategate” brouhaha, the rest
of us are hoping the negotiators in Copenhagen will come up with some kind of
road map that will lead to positive change. But even under the best outcomes,
the focus in Copenhagen will be on emissions, not on how to ensure our
life-giving water resources are protected. To ensure the majority of the world’s population can adapt to a changing
climate, we’ll need to focus as much attention on water as on the air.

For millions of
poor people, climate change is likely to be a death sentence. That’s not
hyperbole, it will actually kill them – by drying up their water supply,
increasing deadly diseases, wiping out their arable land, and flooding their
communities. A river runs through all of these scenarios, and it is that river of life
that will need our attention.

The latest
assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that densely populated
mega-deltas around the world, such as the Yangtze and Ganges-Brahmaputra, will
have more deadly flooding. Water-borne illnesses like cholera and malaria will
increase. Massive swathes of land will become unusable for agriculture in many
poor parts of the world, which will lead to huge increases in hunger and
starvation. The report estimates an additional 80 to 200 million people at risk
of hunger by 2080.

The IPCC says
that Africa is likely to be the worst-hit continent, with hundreds of millions
"very likely" to face severe shortfalls in food and drinkable water
by 2080, probably sooner. But many African
nations are facing a changing climate now. A report from East Africa in The
Guardian lays out a dire picture:

“Droughts have affected millions in a vast
area stretching across Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, and into
Burkina Faso and Mali, and tens of thousands of nomadic herders have had to
give up their animals.

“The scarcity of
water is becoming a nightmare. Rivers are drying up, and the way temperatures
are changing we are likely to get into more problems. Climate change is here,”
said Professor Richard Odingo, the Kenyan vice-chair of the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And in response, water conflict is
rising as competition for the basic elements of life grows more fierce.

Kenya is, admirably, trying
to reduce its dependence on drought-prone hydropower dams by building
geothermal plants and wind turbines.
These kinds of projects are expensive in Africa, which has little expertise and
no manufacturing to support such technologies. The success of international
climate negotiations will depend on the recognition by rich nations of
their historical responsibility for climate change, and the establishment of
programs for financing and capacity-building for clean energy technologies,
sustainable water management, and risk management for climate-related
disasters.

At the same time, Kenya is hoping to buy hydropower from its neighbor Ethiopia, which is building the huge Gibe 3 Dam on the Omo River. This dam will put hundreds of thousands of people living downstream at risk of increased water scarcity – all the way down to Kenya's own Lake Turkana. This project should be firmly opposed by Kenya, and the protection of key waterways like the Omo River made a regional priority.

We need to
refocus some of our attention from the air to the water, and an intensified effort to maintain healthy, sustainable water resources (and to understand what makes a river healthy and sustainable). A new special
climate change issue of World Rivers Review calls for a health insurance plan
for our water supply.

"As far as water goes, climate change changes
everything,” says International Rivers' Patrick McCully in the issue's commentary. “Past experience of rainfall,
snowfall, runoff and streamflow is no longer a reliable guide for the future.
We'll all be affected, but especially small farmers and the poor and
marginalized, who have the least ability to protect themselves against the
depredations of droughts, floods and food shortages."

He recommends, as a start, investing in green
infrastructure, protecting rivers from destructive development projects, investing
in safety measures for existing dams, and providing the means and technologies
to help the poorest.

Do we have what it takes to ensure a river still runs through it for our
grandchildren’s children? The global campaign for a healthy atmosphere has hit
on a number – 350, as in parts per million of atmospheric carbon we must strive
for – to encapsulate the urgency of this critical struggle. River and watershed
protection doesn’t lend itself to a numeric sense of urgency (no one even
knows exactly how many rivers there are in the world!). Perhaps a little
mathematical poetry is called for.
Here’s to “10,000 Rivers for Tomorrow!”

South Africa slams El AL for stringent security checks

2009-12-14T15:46:25Z

The flight route between Israel and South Africa is in danger of being cancelled, El Al airline said on Monday.
...

Read more: South Africa, Israel, Home News

Kambale Musavuli: Conflict Minerals: A Cover For US Allies and Western Mining Interests?

2009-12-14T14:45:55Z

As global awareness grows around the Congo and the silence is finally being broken on the current and historic exploitation of Black people in the heart of Africa, myriad Western based "prescriptions" are being proffered. Most of these prescriptions are devoid of social, political, economic and historical context and are marked by remarkable omissions. The conflict mineral approach or efforts emanating from the United States and Europe are no exception to this symptomatic approach which serves more to perpetuate the root causes of Congo's challenges than to resolve them.

The conflict mineral approach has an obsessive focus on the FDLR and other rebel groups while scant attention is paid to Uganda (which has an International Court of Justice ruling against it for looting and crimes against humanity in the Congo) and Rwanda (whose role in the perpetuation of the conflict and looting of Congo is well documented by UN reports and international arrest warrants for its top officials). Rwanda is the main transit point for illicit minerals coming from the Congo irrespective of the rebel group (FDLR, CNDP or others) transporting the minerals. According to Dow Jones, Rwanda's mining sector output grew 20% in 2008 from the year earlier due to increased export volumes of tungsten, cassiterite and coltan, the country's three leading minerals with which Rwanda is not well endowed. In fact, should Rwanda continue to pilfer Congo's minerals, its annual mineral export revenues are expected to reach $200 million by 2010. Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen says it best when he notes "having controlled the Kivu provinces for 12 years, Rwanda will not relinquish access to resources that constitute a significant percentage of its gross national product." As long as the West continues to give the Kagame regime carte blanche, the conflict and instability will endure.

According to Global Witness's 2009 report, Faced With A Gun What Can you Do, Congolese government statistics and reports by the Group of Experts and NGOs, Rwanda is one of the main conduits for illicit minerals leaving the Congo. It is amazing that the conflict mineral approach shout loudly about making sure that the trade in minerals does not benefit armed groups but the biggest armed beneficiary of Congo's minerals is the Rwandan regime headed by Paul Kagame. Nonetheless, the conflict mineral approach is remarkably silent about Rwanda's complicity in the fueling of the conflict in the Congo and the fleecing of Congo's riches.

Advocates of the conflict mineral approach would be far more credible if they had ever called for any kind of pressure whatsoever on mining companies that are directly involved in either fueling the conflict or exploiting the Congolese people. The United Nations, The Congolese Parliament, Carter Center, Southern Africa Resource Watch and several other NGOs have documented corporations that have pilfered Congo's wealth and contributed to the perpetuation of the conflict. Some of these companies include but are not limited to: Traxys, OM Group, Blattner Elwyn Group, Freeport McMoran, Eagle Wings/Trinitech, Lundin, Kemet, Banro, AngloGold Ashanti, Anvil Mining, and First Quantum.

The conflict mineral approach, like the Blood Diamond campaign from which it draws its inspiration, is silent on the question of resource sovereignty which has been a central question in the geo-strategic battle for Congo's mineral wealth. It was over this question of resource sovereignty that the West assassinated Congo's first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba and stifled the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people for over three decades by installing and backing the dictator Joseph Mobutu. In addition, the United States also backed the 1996 and 1998 invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda instead of supporting the non-violent, pro-democracy forces inside the Congo. Unfortunately and to the chagrin of the Congolese people, some of the strongest advocates of the conflict mineral approach are former Clinton administration officials who supported the invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda. This may in part explains the militaristic underbelly of the conflict mineral approach, which has as its so-called second step a comprehensive counterinsurgency.

The focus on the east of Congo falls in line with the long-held obsession by some advocates in Washington who incessantly push for the balkanization of the Congo. Their focus on "Eastern Congo" is inadequate and does not fully take into account the nature and scope of the dynamics in the entire country. Political decisions in Kinshasa, the capital in the West, have a direct impact on the events that unfold in the East of Congo and are central to any durable solutions.

The central claim of the conflict mineral approach is to bring an end to the conflict; however, the conflict can plausibly be brought to an end much quicker through diplomatic and political means. The so-called blood mineral route is not the quickest way to end the conflict. We have already seen how quickly world pressure can work with the sidelining of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the demobilization and/or rearranging of his CNDP rebel group in January 2009, as a result of global pressure placed on the CNDP's sponsor Paul Kagame of Rwanda. More pressure needs to be placed on leaders such as Kagame and Museveni who have been at the root of the conflict since 1996. The FDLR can readily be pressured as well, especially with most of their political leadership residing in the West, however this should be done within a political framework, which brings all the players to the table as opposed to the current militaristic, dichotomous, good-guy bad-guy approach where the West sees Kagame and Museveni as the "good-guys" and everyone else as bad. The picture is far grayer than Black and White.

A robust political approach by the global community would entail the following prescriptions:

Join Sweden and Netherlands in pressuring Rwanda to be a partner for peace and a stabilizing presence in the region. The United States and Great Britain in particular should apply more pressure on their allies Rwanda and Uganda to the point of withholding aid if necessary.

Hold to account companies and individuals through sanctions trafficking in minerals whether with rebel groups or neighboring countries, particularly Rwanda and Uganda. Canada has chimed in as well but has been deadly silent on the exploitative practices of its mining companies in the Congo. Canada must do more to hold its mining companies accountable as is called for in Bill C-300.

Encourage world leaders to be more engaged diplomatically and place a higher priority on what is the deadliest conflict in the World since World War Two.

Reject the militarization of the Great Lakes region represented by AFRICOM, which has already resulted in the suffering of civilian population; the strengthening of authoritarian figures such as Uganda's Museveni (in power since 1986) and Rwanda's Kagame (won the 2003 "elections" with 95 percent of the vote); and the restriction of political space in their countries.

Demand of the Obama administration to be engaged differently from its current military-laden approach and to take the lead in pursuing an aggressive diplomatic path with an emphasis on pursuing a regional political framework that can lead to lasting peace and stability.

To learn more about the current crisis in the Congo, visit www.conflictminerals.org.

Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. Bodia Macharia is the President of Friends of the Congo/ Canada.

Halle Tecco: When Menstruation Means Inequality

2009-12-14T13:22:14Z

Menstruating is a universal annoyance. Sometimes accompanied with cramps-- and other times with tears at Puppy Chow commercials-- we get through our "time of the month" with Midol, tampons, and tissues. We manage to proceed with our usual routine. In fact, there's not much talk about periods beyond the middle-school "health" talk, followed by a wave of prepubescent snickering and the dismantling of sample tampons.

But for millions of girls and women in the developing world, menstruation is a nightmare. With a dearth of feminine product options, women turn to rags, mud, and even tree bark to physically conceal the situation. Girls in Rwanda miss up to 50 days of school or work per year, which translates to five lost years of productivity over a lifetime. Research conducted by the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE) revealed that this issue is responsible for school drop-out rates.

Elizabeth Scharpf, founder of SHE, is out to find a solution. "In some of these areas of Africa, a month's supply of imported sanitary pads cost more than a day's worth of wages. The donations they receive from individuals help, but they simply are not a long-term solution to the problem," says Scharpf. "Our goal is to create affordable pads that are able to be easily manufactured for a low cost at the local level."

SHE, which stands for Sustainable Health Enterprises, is beginning to train women in Rwanda on how to make and distribute sanitary pads. Their focus is on using local raw materials to ensure affordability, accessibility, and sustainability. They are building a hyper-local, yet scalable, model with hopes of expanding to Southeast Asia, Central America, and India.

Menstruating is annoying. But the ostracization of women for a natural occurrence is a sure threat to the realization of global gender equality. All women have the right to health and dignity. Period.

Bush's Birth Control Policies Fueled Africa's Baby Boom

2009-12-14T09:08:39Z

At age 45, after giving birth to 13 children in her village of thatch roofs and bare feet, Beatrice Adongo made a discovery that startled her: birth control.

Jeff Ballinger: ON THE MEDIA Fawns Over Sweatshop-Loving Kristof

2009-12-13T15:42:02Z

On the Media with Brooke Gladstone in the anchor chair is always a good deal more than a diversion while cleaning the garage or running weekend errands; she explores many topics that are otherwise not covered, or didn't even appear as problems, opportunities, &c. But, when you do an interview with someone like Nick Kristof -- whose audience dwarfs your own -- you ought to be especially prepared to "afflict the comfortable." She needn't have searched too long to find controversy in this man's last decade of columns and, no, it is not because he practices "advocacy journalism" unless -- and here's the point -- he's advocating for sweatshops.

He "flinches" when he hears his work called advocacy (I believe that he meant "wince" or "cringe" but, hey, who gets the big bucks for putting words together?); she countered by pointing out that he often directs readers to his favorite charities when riding his Sudan hobby- horse. This is certainly not to say that we hear enough about Darfur or even to denigrate the notion of journalist-as-advocate, but there is a back-story here.

The brutality of the global, outsource-everything economy was being covered very well by Kristof's colleague, Bob Herbert. In nearly ten searing anti-sweatshop columns in the mid-Nineties, he captured Americans' disquietude about corporate-led globalization while pointing out the tone-deaf callousness of Bill Clinton's team; the latter was summed up nicely by James Carville when asked about his Nike deal (by another journalist, not Herbert): he berated the reporter for deigning to ask, snarling, "I own stock in Royal Dutch Shell, too." This was just like saying that any Democrat who was internationalist and concerned with human rights ought to just get with the program; just go get "yours" and don't worry about the other guy. Carville dismissed concern about abused workers as "protectionist."

So, it was clear that Herbert was out of step -- especially the trenchant truth-telling which left the named shoe and toy brands with nowhere to hide. When Phil Knight (Nike's prickly CEO, at the time) asked for a meeting with the NYTimes' editorial board in 1998, the multi-billionaire was accommodated. Herbert never wrote another anti-sweatshop column and Nick Kristof reformulated the Times' editorial page position to "pro-sweatshop."

What do you think would happen if a consumer or anti-sweatshop group would demand a meeting with the Times' editorial board to complain about Nick? This is the type of question one might ask to get down to the nitty-gritty (which OTM usually does). An additional quibble: Kristof explains his work as "reporting" and he is not challenged on it. In fact, he is an opinion-monger -- with no need to apologize for advocacy, quite the opposite!